


Wait for Me (to Come Home)

by timetravelingvampire



Series: Photograph [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, Not Ant-Man Compliant, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Thanks Ultron, Ultron left us all a gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelingvampire/pseuds/timetravelingvampire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After gods and aliens, Darcy Lewis was trying to live a normal life: working on her Masters and taking care of her three-year-old son. Unfortunately, with her son's father being who he is, that's not likely to happen.</p><p>(takes place during and after Age of Ultron)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one: hard to use my feet (1/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events of the first Avengers take place in 2011 in this 'verse. Also, I'm using the date AoU came out as the actual date they went to Strucker's castle.

Darcy Lewis looked up from typing a paper at the kitchen table when her iPad started beeping, signifying an incoming call. She craned her head to look at the caller ID. “Hey, Patrick, your daddy’s calling.”

“He’s early, Mommy!” the three-year-old boy exclaimed. He ran over and swiped to accept, moving his face close so the camera could only see his eye. “Daddy! Hi!”

“Hi, buddy, you have a good day?” Steve Rogers asked. “Do I get to see more than your eye?”

“My eyes are pretty, Daddy,” Patrick said solemnly. “Miss Shelley said so.”

Darcy laughed and agreed. “They are pretty, kid.”

“We have the same eyes, Patrick. Does that mean mine are pretty too?”

Patrick dropped the tablet into his mother’s hands and crawled into her lap. “I don’t know, Daddy. Mommy, are Daddy’s eyes pretty too?”

Steve fluttered his eyelashes, and Patrick cracked up. “Sure,” Darcy drawled. “Very pretty. You’re early, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he started. “Um. So they decided to have a revel after we finished storming Strucker’s castle, and I… hey, Patrick, can I talk to your mom in private?”

“I still get a story, right, Daddy?” Patrick asked, jumping down from Darcy’s lap.

“Sure, buddy.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow at Steve as she walked the short distance to the bathroom and shut the door. “What’s up?”

“The revel, I mean, party, it’s just that Thor called it that, and it’s stuck, and. I want you and Patrick to come.”

Darcy didn’t say anything and sat down. “When is it?”

“In a couple hours?” Steve said, wincing. “I can have Sam come get you in one of the Quinjets.”

“It’s Monday.”

“I know, and it’s short notice,” Steve agreed. “Thor mentioned to me earlier today that he missed you two and wanted to know if you were planning on coming.”

“Thor knows we’re not together, so why would he ask you to ask me?” Darcy said slowly, confused. “He can come see me anytime. Or call me himself.”

“He’s going back to Asgard tomorrow with the scepter.”

“And then he’ll be back to be with Jane, so…,” Darcy countered. "Steve, it’s a Monday and really short notice.”

“Look, it’ll just be in and out, and no one will know you’ve even been here.”

“Except everyone’s who at the party.”

“You’ll know most of the people there,” Steve sighed. “C’mon, Darce. It’ll be easy.”

“It’s not as easy as that, Steve,” Darcy said sharply. “He’ll be the only kid. You know Stark’s parties are insane, and we wouldn’t be able to control who sees him. I can’t just drop everything, I can’t drop all of Patrick’s things and come to New York just because.”

“It’s not just because,” Steve insisted. “Tony and Thor are insisting on this revel, and I’d like to spend time with you and Patrick.”

Darcy hit her head on the bathroom counter lightly from her perch on the closed toilet seat lid. “On a Monday. At a party.”

“Darcy, I want you guys to be here.”

“Steve, I can’t. Not with this short notice, and Patrick,” she broke off and sighed.

“Patrick’s just a kid,” Steve said, disagreeing. “He’ll be fine.”

“He needs structure.”

“So he’ll be tired for a couple days,” Steve said. “It’ll be fine.”

Darcy snorted. “You’ve never seen him tired.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” They both were silent for a minute, and Steve finally capitulated. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, Darcy. We’re not together because we don’t work like that, but Patrick’s my son, and I love you.”

“I know, but I can’t just leave everything I’ve built here.”

“I want both of you to be a bigger part of my life,” Steve said softly. “I always have.”

“And I want to be safe,” Darcy retorted. “I want Patrick to be safe. He’s barely three, Steve. He needs to be secure.”

“You’re scared,” he returned.

“Oh, fuck you,” Darcy said. “Far be it for me to want something more than Destroyers and Dark Elves and mind gems and paparazzi around me or my kid.”

“The Tower is safe.”

“No one knowing Patrick is your son is safe. The more people know, the more danger he’s in.”

“Darcy,” he tried to interject.

“And I don’t want to live a life that revolves around the Avengers. That’s why I’m getting my Masters. That’s why I’m here. I want to be more than Jane’s intern and your son’s mother.”

“I know,” Steve agreed. “You think I don’t get that drive to be more, to make a difference?”

“I thought it was enough, helping Jane,” Darcy started. “But then with the Convergence...”

“Darcy,” Steve said gently. “I know. But the semester’s going to be over soon, and you’re going to be looking for a new job, and I just. Okay, you couldn’t come tonight, but in a couple weeks?”

Darcy shook her head. “No.”

“Please. I grew up without a father. I don’t want Patrick to...”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Darcy started. “You can be as much of a father to Patrick as you want to be. We don’t have to live in the same house or the same city or the same state. It might make your life easier, but it puts mine in a box. I don’t expect you to drop your life for Patrick.”

“I don’t expect you to either!”

Darcy huffed. “Yes, you do. You want Patrick safe. You want us protected. You want us in a little box where we’ll be stifled. He needs to be a regular little boy.”

“He can be one here too!”

“In the middle of the Tower? Where everyone will figure out he’s your son? Where is he going to make friends? Anytime I take him out, he’ll be faced with paparazzi. I’m not going to subject him to that.”

“You’re being unreasonable. I want the best for you.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Steve,” Darcy said. “Hang on, Patrick just knocked on the door.” Darcy stood up, opening the door, and shoved the tablet into Patrick’s hands. “Here’s your father, Patrick.”

“Daddy!” Patrick exclaimed. “I was thinking, since you’re early, can I get two chapters?”

#######

Patrick was too wound up from getting a long call with his father to go to sleep at a normal time, and the next morning was rough. Darcy somehow managed to get them out of the door and into the car only ten minutes behind schedule. “Patrick James,” Darcy warned. “Put your fruit snacks back in your lunch box. Those are for lunch, not for second breakfast.”

Patrick sighed and complied. “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

“No, you’re not,” she replied, putting her right turn signal on seconds before changing lanes and swerving around the corner. “You just ate breakfast.”

“I am so,” he said emphatically. “I hate eggs.”

Darcy sighed, coming to a stop at the stop sign. “You love eggs. You told me yesterday you wanted eggs for every meal.”

“No, I didn’t! I hate eggs!!” Patrick insisted, thumping his small feet against the seat.

“Patrick.”

He huffed and stayed silent for a minute. “I want to see Daddy.”

“Daddy’s busy,” she answered, pulling into the school’s driveway and careening into a parking spot.

“Daddy’s always busy. I wanna see him now.”

“You saw him last week, and he read to you last night on video chat like always,” Darcy said as she unlocked the car doors. “Do you have your lunch box?”

“Yep.”

“What about your backpack?”

Patrick nodded, a shock of blond hair falling into his blue eyes. “And I got my stickers and my picture for Miss Shelley.”

Before Darcy could turn off the engine, the door on the passenger side opened, and a man slipped inside, hair jaggedly cut and pushed under a black ball cap. Darcy reached for her taser, but her purse was on the floor of the passenger side, and there was no way she could get to it before the man could. She chanced a glance back at Patrick, who was keeping still and quiet, but went immobile when she saw the gun in the man’s right hand. “Drive,” he insisted, voice gravelly.

Darcy put the car in reverse, cursing, and as she reached for the panic button on her key ring, she caught a flash of silver interlocking metal plates between the man’s glove on his left hand and the cuff of his jacket. “Don’t push it,” he ordered.

“Mommy?” Patrick’s voice quavered, and Darcy’s lips thinned. “Mommy, I want to go to school.”

“We’re not going to school, baby,” she said softly, hoping he’d remember the code words both she and Steve had tried to train him with. “We’re going for a ride with this nice man.”

Patrick nodded - she could see the top of his head moving in the rear view mirror - as she flipped her turn signal back on and headed for the city limits, and she sighed in relief before his arm flew out and started hitting the side of the passenger seat. The man recoiled, and the hand with the gun twitched; Darcy’s eyes widened. “Patrick.”

“I WANT DADDY,” he shouted.

“So do I,” she said. “That’s not going to happen right now. You need to be quiet.”

They drove in silence for the next fifteen minutes, the man indicating when she needed to turn with a flick of his gloved left hand, gun unwaveringly pointed at her head from his lap where Patrick couldn’t see it.

#######

Darcy pulled into the driveway of a grey house on a block that had clearly seen better days. Weeds peppered the long grass, and the house had needed a paint job at least a decade ago, dingy maroon shutters hanging askew from the windows. She turned the car off and unbuckled her seat belt. “What do you want?”

“Take the key off the key ring, and leave it in the ignition,” he ordered. When she complied, he continued, gesturing for the key ring. “Out of the car. Get the child and go inside.”

He crushed the key ring and tracking chip in his left hand. There was another tracking beacon on Patrick’s backpack, but either Bucky or whomever he was working for had done their homework; he held out his hand for the bag when Darcy picked Patrick up, and she closed her eyes. Her cell phone was in her purse. She should have listened to Steve. She should have kept her phone on her body and the taser near enough so she could grab either, but it’d been almost a year since SHIELD fell. She had been more worried about paparazzi and celebrity stalkers and being normal than this.

Darcy carried Patrick inside and set him down on his feet, the boy clinging to her leg, fingers in his mouth. “Mommy?” he asked quietly.

“Shh, Patrick, Daddy will find us, okay?”

Darcy glanced around the house. It had been used as a meth house at some point, she could tell; there were no appliances left in the kitchen, and a grimy film sat over the counters. The mottled green couch in the front room was sagging and full of dust. She sat gingerly on the arm, wincing as it creaked under her body, and tugged Patrick in between her legs. There was nowhere she could go; she couldn’t outrun a serum-enhanced soldier by herself, let alone with a three-year-old in tow. She couldn’t fight back and potentially leave Patrick alone. For now, if Bucky wasn’t going to threaten them with bodily harm, the best thing to do was wait. When Patrick didn’t show up at school, they would call her supervisor. Her supervisor would call Jane. There was a system in place, and Darcy kept running through the steps in her head, knowing it might be a couple hours before Steve got notified, more if he was out on a mission. Someone would know though; one of the Avengers would come, even if they didn’t know why.

The front door opened, and Darcy jumped up, pushing Patrick behind her. Bucky was holding a plastic bag in his left hand - now ungloved - and to her relief, she could see Patrick’s lunch, snacks, and inhaler in it, along with his extra set of clothes and stuffed bear. “You know Steve will be looking for us soon,” she said.

Bucky had no reaction, and her heart sank. Steve had lost track of Bucky six months after the helicarriers went into the Potomac, and they knew what was left of Hydra could have re-captured him. If he didn’t remember Steve, didn’t see him in the little boy peeking at him around her leg, then Darcy didn’t have much hope for her survival. Patrick would be a better bargaining chip and more susceptible to reprogramming or training they could come up with; there was little use for her. But Patrick was her little boy, and she would protect him. “We need to leave,” Bucky said. “Out the back.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Darcy replied. “What are you doing? Why are you taking us?”

Bucky snatched Patrick by the shoulder and, before Darcy had a chance to react, started moving through the house. “If you don’t want to come, that’s up to you,” he said.

Patrick went limp, a dead weight in his hand, but Bucky didn’t pause, lifting him up in his left arm and ignoring his kicking feet and pounding little fists. Darcy had no choice but to follow him through the house and out the back door to a car that matched the rest of the house’s disreputable décor, aside from a brand new car seat. So much for the Stark-enabled GPS tracking in Patrick’s customized seat, she thought ruefully.

#######

Three hours and two cars later, the three of them had crossed the border from Maryland into West Virginia, and Patrick had moved from being quietly obedient in the back seat next to Darcy to a full-on tantrum. Bucky was clearly ignoring the ruckus, back ramrod straight, hands at ten and two, and eyes focused on the road. Darcy wasn’t particularly sure how; Patrick was alternating between screaming at the top of his lungs for Steve and crying piteously, snot running down his face. Nothing she could do would quiet him, and she’d never felt more like a failure as a mother. “Mommy,” he hiccupped. “Mommy, I need to go potty.”

Bucky’s shoulders went even straighter at that, and he took the very next exit off 68. “Just need to hold on a little bit longer,” Darcy said, swiping Patrick’s hair off his forehead, trying to come up with a plan.

They passed farmland and a couple houses before Bucky turned off the road into a forested area. He left the car running, got out, and opened Darcy’s door. “You have two minutes.”

Darcy nodded, eyes on the gun held loosely in his right hand as her fingers unstrapped Patrick from his seat. The two sidestepped out of the car, and she directed Patrick towards a tree and waited until she could hear his tinkle before edging closer to Bucky. Making sure Patrick was fully engrossed, Darcy kicked out, knocked the gun out of his hand, and dove after it. She nearly had it in her hand when her leg wrenched back. “That was a foolish thing to do,” Bucky stated evenly, dragging her back to his side by her leg and ignoring her muffled scream of pain.

“That’s my mommy!” Patrick yelled, running over. “What did you do to my mommy?!”

Bucky looked at Patrick, and whatever the boy saw in his face made him go quiet. He sat quietly down next to Darcy, patting her leg and glaring up at Bucky. “Mommy, are you okay?”

Darcy tried to nod, biting back a gasp of pain as she tried to rotate her ankle. “Sure as rain, baby.”

Bucky grabbed her upper arm, yanking her to her feet, and dropped her just as suddenly when Patrick launched himself at Bucky, fists and legs whirling, teeth bared. Patrick’s teeth clamped down on Bucky’s flesh hand, but Bucky shook him off and grabbed him by the back of his shirt. He stalked back to the car, towing Patrick behind him, and strapped the boy into his seat. Darcy lurched over to the car, putting as little weight as possible on her right ankle. “Why are you doing this? Where are you taking us?”

Bucky didn’t answer her question. “I have handcuffs,” he said instead. “Are you going to get in the car and sit quietly, or will I need to use them?”

Darcy sat.

#######

They stopped at a diner outside Indianapolis six hours and two potty breaks later. Patrick had fallen into a fitful nap a couple hours ago, and the hostess cooed over his sleep-mussed hair and over-warm face as they were seated. Darcy didn’t have any experience in being kidnapped, but she figured taking the targets into an exposed area where they could get help was not normal. Bucky took Patrick from her and pushed him into the provided booster before sliding into the booth next to him, leaving the opposite side open for her. Darcy hesitated before sitting, and Bucky just looked at her. “Fine,” she ground out and slid in.

“Alright, dears, here are your menus,” the hostess bubbled.

“Two burgers, fries, and waters,” Bucky said. “Same for the kid.”

The painted-on smile slipped a bit, but the hostess gamely recovered. “Right up, honey!!”

“Mommy?” Patrick asked. “I get to have a burger? And fries?”

Darcy forced a smile. “Sure, kid, it’s a special treat after all the driving today.”

“Wow!”

Bucky huffed, and Darcy glared at him. “Are you going to be any more forthcoming about your plans for us?”

He stayed silent, twitching when their waitress brought over a kid’s placemat and crayons and their waters. Patrick fell to the crayons with gusto, the day’s terror apparently pushed out of his mind for now. Darcy knew it might be a rough night, so what peace her son could get now was worth it. By now, people would be looking for her and Patrick. She just had to wait. It didn’t make sense to her though. Why hadn’t Bucky stopped to check in with someone or made a ransom demand?

Darcy stared at Bucky while he continually scanned the diner from their corner booth, cataloging patrons and personnel. His eyes were cold and lifeless, but this wasn’t the assassin Sam and Steve had described fighting or the one in the files she helped Steve go through. The Winter Soldier hadn’t cared about collateral damage and definitely wasn’t used to kidnap women and children. He was sent after high-profile targets and never kept out of cryostasis more than a week. She could have handled the Soldier better. This man who had his own mind she couldn’t predict was far more dangerous to both of them.

She needed to wait, to get more information, to figure out what was going on. She had to protect her son.

Their food came before she could ask Bucky any more questions, and she ate methodically after cutting Patrick’s burger into quarters. “Mommy, can I have ketchup?” Patrick asked.

Before Darcy could answer, Bucky grabbed the red bottle and squeezed out a dollop on the side of Patrick’s plate, near the pickles the boy had painstakingly peeled off. “Excuse me?” Darcy said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“He ain’t allergic,” Bucky said gruffly. “What else do you eat fries with?”

“Not high fructose corn syrup.” Bucky waved his right hand in dismissal, and Darcy bristled. “He’s my kid.”

“Mommy, it’s okay,” Patrick said quietly. “I won’t eat the ketchup.”

Darcy dropped her head in her hands and breathed deeply, grease and burnt coffee overwhelming her senses. She had to protect her son and keep the peace until she figured out what was going on. “Patrick, baby, go ahead.”

Patrick furrowed his brow, looking so much like Steve when he got stubborn that Darcy couldn’t help but smile. “Mommy?”

“Mommy’s tired,” she said. “Let’s eat dinner, and maybe then we can go sleep somewhere.”

“K,” the boy agreed, already dragging a fry through the ketchup.

“Are we going to sleep?” Darcy asked, looking archly at Bucky.

He didn’t answer, and she huffed in irritation before starting to pick apart what was left of her burger. When Patrick was done, Bucky reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, and dropped some money on the table before he stood and picked up the boy. “Toilet?”

Patrick nodded, and Bucky started for the door painted “family.” Darcy scuttled close behind, trying to hide her limp. The waitress smiled at the three of them, and Darcy wanted to ask her how she didn’t see anything off, why she didn’t say something, but she already knew the answer. She grew up in a small town just like this where you don’t see anything, you don’t hear anything, you don’t say anything, you just keep the peace so you can get by.

Once in the small bathroom, Patrick quickly pulled his pants down, and Bucky boosted him onto the seat. “What the fuck are you doing?” Darcy asked quietly.

Bucky looked at her for a long moment. “Keepin’ you alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is mostly complete. I'll post the next chapter Thursday night. I am on the [tumblr](http://timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com) in the meantime.


	2. part one: hard to use my feet (2/3)

Bucky didn’t say another word. He helped Patrick wash his hands while Darcy used the toilet and kept Patrick on his hip as they went back out to the car and continued driving. After another half-hour on back roads, he pulled off at a sketchy-looking motel that offered hourly rates. She could have run off, but he had taken the keys, there were no other cars in the parking lot, and she needed more information. Patrick was fast asleep, and she wouldn’t leave her kid and couldn’t carry him for long with the way her ankle was throbbing.

Bucky came back, holding a key gingerly in his metal hand, and opened her car door. “Let’s go.”

Darcy stumbled out of the car and turned back in to unbuckle and lift Patrick out. Bucky pulled the duffel bag he’d been carrying from car to car out of the trunk and then grabbed Patrick’s things from the back seat before stalking over to the room he’d rented and unlocking the door.

Darcy took in the two shabby beds and TV with a shudder. She’d slept - and lived - in worse, but it’d been a while. Holding Patrick a little tighter, she managed to pull down one of the worn-thin and stained comforters and then set him down on the scratchy white sheets. Pajamas dropped in front of her, and she changed Patrick’s clothes, the boy not even stirring. Putting his stuffed bear in the crook of his arm, she pulled the sheet back up over him and sat down heavily next to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Bucky slice the phone cable in two and barricade the door with the dresser. “What if there’s a fire?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t reply, and her very slow-burning fuse reached its end. “Barnes. What the fuck are you doing?”

He still didn’t answer, and she breathed in deeply to calm her nerves before jerking the nightstand drawer open and grabbing the Gideon Bible. She chucked it at his head. The metal arm came up and caught it before it hit the back of his head. “I have a gun,” he finally said gruffly.

“You’ve had plenty of opportunities to kill both my son and myself,” Darcy stated. “If you wanted us dead, we’d be dead. You said you were saving our lives.”

Bucky turned around and fixed her with his empty glare. “Do you have any other tracking devices?”

“If I did, don’t you think someone would have caught up to us?”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“It was a stupid question.”

Bucky sat down on the opposite bed and looked at her for a long moment. When she didn’t fidget, met his eyes instead, he nodded. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?” Darcy asked.

“I don’t know why. I know I was sent to kill you, but it didn’t make sense. I remember the fight, the water, saving that man’s life, and running. I remember being captured again. I know I’m not supposed to remember.”

“So what, you just took the chance to run again? Figured it’d be easier with a civilian and her kid? Decided to forego the mission?”

“You’re not just a civilian,” Bucky said, pushing a hand through his hair in agitation, the first emotion he’d shown. “I don’t get sent to kill civilians, so, yes, I took the chance to run again. I am supposed to report in tomorrow; when I don’t, they will follow. That man, Steve, the one who said he knew me, tried to follow me before, so I assume he will again. You’ll be safe with him.”

“So you don’t know then,” she said softly. “Patrick is Steve’s son.”

Bucky nodded jerkily. “That’s what the mission brief said.”

Darcy’s head shot up. “No one knows that. Well, the only people who know that, I can count on one hand, and none of them would give that information up under torture. He’s supposed to be safe. We have protocols.”

She stood up and started pacing. “We have protocols,” she said again. “We have worst-case scenario situations. We have code words. How could anyone find out who Patrick’s dad is?”

Bucky reached into the duffel bag, and Darcy tensed; she was too far away from Patrick to cover him. Bucky pulled out a folder and gave it to her. Patrick whimpered in his sleep, and Darcy walked back over to him, pushing back his hair from his forehead before sitting down on the bed, pulling her feet underneath her. Inside were several surveillance pictures of both Patrick and her going about their day, nothing that screamed anything more than “single mom.” Turning to the next section, she blanched. So much for the vaunted security of his preschool. “They did a DNA test?”

Darcy turned the page over and stared at a picture of Steve as a toddler next to one of her son in his reading circle. She traced Steve’s nose with a finger. “How did they get it?” Bucky didn’t reply. “Do I have to throw the Bible at you again?”

“I’m not going to answer questions you can find the answer to yourself,” he said brusquely. “There are clothes for you in that bag. I’ll be back.”

Darcy watched as Bucky nimbly opened the window, slid out, and closed it before striding off into the darkness. He had taken the car keys with him, but maybe she could still find a way out and call Steve or Jane.

Five minutes later, Darcy was near tears. She couldn’t budge the dresser enough to open the door. She couldn’t get the phone line spliced back together. She couldn’t fit through the window. Well, her legs and hips could, but her chest couldn’t, even if she broke the glass. After locking the window, Darcy went to the duffel bag and pawed through its contents. There was trail mix, granola bars, and clothes enough for the three of them for a couple of days, including underwear - and she didn’t particularly want to know how Hydra knew her bra size - and toiletries. Grabbing pajama pants, she changed and snuggled in next to Patrick before opening the folder back again.

#######

Hours later, she woke up, sun slanting across her face, the folder placed on the nightstand, and the shower running. Patrick snuffled when she moved. “Hey, time to get up, Patrick,” she said softly, running a hand through his hair.

“Don’t wanna, Mommy,” he groused, pushing his face into her leg. “Tired.”

“Patrick, we need to talk.”

His eyes slowly opened and blinked owlishly. “Is the bad man still here?”

Darcy sighed. “Yeah.”

“Is Daddy coming? Or Uncle Thor?” he asked.

“I hope so, precious,” she said. “Right now, we’re safe though, okay?”

Patrick picked at the sheets. “Is he gonna murder us?”

“No,” came the answer from the doorway. Dressed only in his combat pants, Bucky ran the towel through his hair. “I’m going to get food. We leave in a half-hour.”

Patrick watched in rapt fascination as Bucky grabbed a shirt from the duffel bag she’d left open and slid through the window before shrugging it on. “Is he like Daddy?”

“C’mon, let’s get you up and dressed,” Darcy said, side-stepping the question. “Time for a bath.”

Patrick pouted when he realized none of his bath toys were in the motel and kept banging the toilet seat on the toilet while she was in the shower, but the two were ready to go within ten minutes, albeit with wet hair. Hydra’s foresight didn’t include hair dryers, apparently. “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

“Bucky said he was going to get food.”

“Is that Daddy’s Bucky?!”

Darcy sighed, pulling a hair tie from the bag and putting her hair up. “Patrick. Daddy or Uncle Thor are going to come and get us, okay? Until then, I need you to listen to what I say. That’s Daddy’s Bucky, but you remember when Uncle Sam explained his head might be sick?”

Patrick chewed on his bottom lip. “Yeah. Is he still sick?”

“I don’t know, but until I know, you can’t treat him like you do your other uncles, okay?” she explained, tying his little sneakers.

“Okay. But maybe someday?”

“Maybe someday. For right now, he’s like Mr Stark.”

Patrick wrinkled his nose. “Will Iron Man hafta come get us? I hope not.”

Just then, Bucky eeled his way back into the room, carrying a couple takeaway cartons. “There’s coffee in the car,” he said, shortly. “Eat first.”

Darcy watched her son dig into the scrambled eggs and hash browns with gusto before meeting Bucky’s gaze. He lifted an eyebrow pointedly, and she growled before turning to the other carton. As they ate, Bucky re-packed the duffel bag and moved the furniture back into place. He ushered them out the door and into another new car, a blue sedan.

The day passed in a similar fashion to yesterday. Bucky criss-crossed flyover country, though Darcy never saw anyone following them. After a stop at a Toys-R-Us and Walmart, they’d procured enough toys and games to keep Patrick entertained, and Darcy delved into the files Bucky had brought with them.

The files she read on the first day were similar to what she, Steve, and Sam had gone through last summer, and she flipped through them, translating from German and Russian in her head and jotting down anything new. Willie Bioff was a new name; the Winter Soldier didn’t typically deal in bombs. He had spent most of the 1960s on ice, and after killing Thomas Eboli in 1972, the familiar surroundings had led him to go AWOL; he wasn’t brought back to the United States until 2010. In fact, he had been left in storage until Olof Palme was killed in 1986. He was not responsible for many of the deaths that had been bandied about on talk shows, definitely not JFK or the Starks. The Russians and Hydra kept meticulous records, and Darcy wasn’t sure she wanted to know Bucky had gotten a hold of them.

Bucky led them to another run-down motel that night. Darcy had been in the bathroom, assuming Patrick was too tired to bother Bucky, who had turned on the TV to Nick at Nite and was apparently riveted by a Friends rerun. When she came back out, barefoot, in pajamas, and bra-less, Patrick had gotten out of bed and was standing next to where Bucky was sitting, now ramrod-straight, unnaturally tense, eyes completely focused on the TV. Darcy watched carefully. “What should I call you?” Patrick asked. “Daddy always talks about his Bucky, but your real name is James.”

Real names were important to Patrick; he had resisted being called any diminutive of his name since he was old enough to know what a name was. When the show went to a commercial, Bucky turned to the boy, clenching his metal fist, gears whirling. “What does your father call me when he’s talking to you?”

“He says ‘Uncle Bucky,’ but I have lots of uncles, like Uncle Thor and Uncle Sam and Uncle Clint, and I’ve got lots of aunts too,” Patrick stated. “If you don’t want to be my uncle yet, that’s okay. I want to call you by the name you want. Mommy says that’s important, like how my teacher used to be Mr Michael, and now she’s Miss Shelley. You hafta call people what they want to be called ‘cause that’s their iden... ident... who they are.”

From the files, Darcy knew Bucky had not been called anything other than the Asset or the Soldier since falling from the train. “When they wake me and give me a mission, they call me the Soldier.”

“Am I your mission?” Patrick asked, confused. “What’s a mission?”

“I don’t have a mission.”

Darcy walked more fully into the room, turning off the TV and sitting on the bed opposite the duo. “A mission is a task, baby.”

“Like a chore?”

Bucky stared at the blank TV. “I don’t have a mission.”

Patrick scooted up onto the bed and snuggled up to Darcy. “I don’t like chores.”

For the hundredth time, Darcy wished Steve or Sam were there. They would know what to do with the man sitting in front of her. Darcy mentally shook herself: wishes wouldn’t help her, and neither would Stockholm Syndrome. She had to keep Patrick safe; that had to be her priority. “Patrick, baby, time for bed. Let the man think for a bit.”

Patrick grumbled but settled down in the bed, clutching his bear and her hand. After another ten minutes where Darcy watched Bucky stare at the blank TV, she shrugged and bedded down behind her son, holding him close. Both she and Patrick were nearly asleep when Bucky softly said “you can call me Uncle Bucky” and immediately got up and left the room.

Both Bucky and Patrick were quiet the next day. At one of their bathroom stops, Darcy took the chance to edge closer to Bucky, telegraphing her motions. “Barnes, what are you getting out of this?”

He flinched. “I don’t know.”

“We’re driving in circles.”

“Need to make sure there’s no tail.”

There had been no other cars in the parking lot of the rest stop, and only a few had roared by on the interstate. Darcy raised her eyebrows pointedly at him. “What’s your plan?”

“Need to make sure you’re safe.”

“Pretty sure the best way to do that is to get the two of us to Avengers Tower,” she answered.

“Steve’s not there; they’ve disappeared.”

Darcy was reasonably sure they’d all gone to the Barton farm, but that location was still need-to-know, and she had never needed to know, even if she and Laura did commiserate via Skype at least once a week. “We can’t drive for forever.”

Patrick was hopping back down the path from the rest stop bathroom to them, and Bucky brusquely turned away. “Don’t know.”

He started the car and avoided every attempt by Patrick to draw him into the conversation. Eventually, Patrick gave up on both his mother and Uncle Bucky and started talking to his stuffed bear.

Darcy was speed-reading through files, now on SHIELD and Hydra’s infiltration, most of her brain ruminating on Bucky’s behavior, and gave herself a timeline: only two more days of circling the country in this increasingly bizarre method of test-driving several models of cars before she’d make contact. She and Patrick were safe. Bucky was lost.

#######

The next day, three days after being kidnapped and one day before Darcy’s ultimatum to herself came due, Bucky led them to a large black SUV and went back on I-81 going north through the never-ending Virginia countryside. It was a swanky ride: black leather, heated seats, and a top-of-the-line Stark first aid kit in the back. Patrick amused himself with the TV in the back of the seat for a while before sighing and poking Darcy. “Mommy, I’m bored.”

“Coloring books,” Bucky answered, jerking his head towards the front passenger seat.

Patrick’s face lit up, and he reached for the seat, touching the divider. Darcy unbuckled herself and reached over the seat for the books and crayons.

And then the world went black.

The car screeched to a sudden stop, and Patrick screamed in shock. Bucky let out a keening squeal. Darcy was flung over the front passenger seat, her dangling leg the only thing keeping her from going through the windshield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorrynotsorry
> 
> FWIW, I thought a lot about AoU's timeline and looked around the interwebs, but it was never very clear, and I didn't wanna re-watch it. Bucky takes them the day after the party, i.e., the day where the Hulk tries to destroy a city. That night, and the next day, they hide out at the Barton's farm and then make Vision, join up with the twins, and plan to go to Sokovia. The third day, they defeat Ultron. This chapter ends the morning after Ultron is defeated. If I've made the timeline a day too short, we can just pretend Bucky, Darcy, and Patrick were driving around an extra day.
> 
> Next one'll be up Saturday! As always, on the [Tumblr](http://timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com).


	3. part one: hard to use my feet (3/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline reminder: Story started the night of the Ultron's creation. Chapter 2 ended the afternoon after Ultron was defeated. This chapter starts the morning after Ultron being defeated.

“Avengers...” Steve started to say before a buzzing at his hip startled him. “Uh, Natasha, you’ve got this?”

Without waiting for an answer, Steve went back through the door and down the hallway to his small office. “Jane. What’s happened?”

“Oh my God, finally. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for three days,” Jane’s normally bright voice was thick with worry. “I got a call from Darcy’s supervisor when she didn’t show up for work and hadn’t called in, so I called Patrick’s school, and he hadn’t come in either.”

“You tried Darcy?” Steve asked, pulling up the program their trackers synced with.

“Yes,” she answered, the ‘I’m not an idiot’ plain in her voice. “No one’s seen or heard from either of them since Darcy left her apartment three days ago in the morning with Patrick.”

“The last data from their trackers,” Steve started.

“... shows Baltimore, right,” Jane interrupted. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with any of you in the past three days, but I called in an anonymous tip to the Baltimore police. Darcy’s car was found in a chop shop where they swear it was all above-board. Her supervisor filed a missing person’s report on them. No one saw or heard anything. I’ve done everything I can from here, and I can’t travel back to the US right now. They’ve vanished, Steve.”

Steve rubbed his forehead and blew out harshly. “Send me what you’ve got,” he said sharply. “It’s been three days?”

“Since the morning after your party, right before the Hulk made a mess in Namibia,” Jane answered. “I told Pepper, but she couldn’t start a search with JARVIS out of service.”

“No, I guess not,” Steve stood up and started changing into street clothes, phone tucked next to his ear. “I’ll go to Baltimore, start from there. Let me know the minute you hear anything.”

“Of course,” she answered. “Bring them home, Steve.”

Steve put his phone down on his desk carefully before turning and punching the wall. “Fuck.”

“Language, Cap.”

Steve turned and glowered at Sam. “Someone took Patrick and Darcy. I’m going to find them.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

“This isn’t your search.”

“Hell it isn’t,” Sam answered, clapping Steve on the back. “I like Darcy, and Patrick’s an adorable kid. Don’t be a self-sacrificing idiot.”

Steve quirked his lips. “That’s my specialty.”

“What do you need from me?” Sam asked.

“First, this,” Steve said, closing the door behind Sam and pulling him close.

Steve tucked his head into Sam’s neck and just breathed, the remnants of Sam’s musky cologne combined with sweat and his fresh scent. Sam’s hands swept down Steve’s back and pulled him closer. “Not that I mind this ever at any time, and in fact, we can do this all the time, but what else?”

Steve skimmed his hands up and held onto Sam’s shoulders. He pressed a quick kiss onto Sam’s lips. “Quinjet. You. Probably my shield, just in case.”

Sam stepped back and let Steve’s hands fall away. “Alright, let me make a call.”

Steve went back to his laptop and pulled up the tracking data while Sam got on his transponder. “Baltimore. Looks like Darcy was runnin’ late, went to school to drop Patrick off, and then went west from there. The last data is from near Presstown St.”

“We’ve got a ride. Let’s jet.” Sam grabbed the shield and the go-bag stuffed in the corner of the room and shoved both of them at Steve. “Last time you were in contact?”

“Four days ago,” Steve said ruefully. “When we fought. I did text her to let her know I’d be out of contact for a while when we were on our way to hide out at Barton’s, but she never responded. Fuck.”

“Yeah, don’t think I would have ever pegged Barton for a family man,” Sam said, pulling Steve down the hallway and to the aviation hanger. “Then again, never would have thought you’d have a rugrat either.”

“It’s not like he was planned,” Steve protested. “Besides, that was Darcy’s reason for people not knowing about Patrick; then he and Darcy couldn’t be used against me or become collateral damage.”

“He does look an awful lot like you though,” Sam answered. “Genetics and all.”

Natasha was waiting in the hanger, and Steve slowed down. “Sam, go ahead, and start the pre-flight checklist. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You going somewhere, soldier?” Natasha asked, her tone flippant.

Steve nodded and matched her tone. “Got somewhere I need to be.”

“More important than here?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I’ll keep in touch. Let you know when I’ll be back.”

Natasha stared him down, but Steve didn’t budge or waver. “Fine. I’ll keep things running here, but I expect an explanation when you get back.”

Steve climbed in the hatch of the quinjet as Sam turned it on. “Expectations don’t always get met, Natasha.”

Natasha’s eyes widened for a second before she was able to smooth her expression out, but by then, Steve was already closing the door. “Where we heading, Cap?”

“Stark’s got a hanger at the local airport in Baltimore,” he answered.

“You sure it’s a good idea to piss off the Black Widow?”

Steve shrugged. “I can handle it.”

“I don’t know, man,” Sam said, taking off and turning the cloaking mechanism on. “I don’t know if I can handle the fallout of her finding out you got a kid and that I knew when she didn’t.”

“You only found out by accident,” Steve said, indignancy giving way to a soft, small voice. “It’s supposed to keep them safe.”

“They’ll be doing their best to get back, Steve,” Sam said, chancing a look over at where Steve had strapped himself in. “Darcy’s a strong woman, and Patrick’s a firecracker.”

Steve fisted his hands in his lap. “Yeah.”

The two didn’t speak again until they’d landed and taken a car from Martin State Airport. “You driving?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got the name of the shop where her car was taken,” Steve replied.

“Probably shouldn’t be all ‘Captain America is disappointed in you’ when we get there,” Sam suggested and then rolled his eyes at Steve’s scoff. “And maybe we shouldn’t break all the traffic laws if you wanna be under the radar,” Sam continued.

“You got an idea of something I should do then?” Steve retorted before shaking his head. “Sorry.”

Sam looked at Steve and then grabbed his hand. “We’ll get them back.”

The bright, sunny day was at odds with the turmoil swirling in Steve’s stomach as he parked across the street from the garage. “Ready, Sam?”

“Oh, I am. I’m just waiting for you.”

The two strode purposefully across the street and into the garage. The door banged shut behind them, and a white man with grease stains around his lips and a blob of ketchup on a t-shirt stretched over a large stomach looked up and then started backing away. “We don’t want no trouble here.”

“Not looking for trouble,” Sam said smoothly. “We’re looking for information on a Volvo 760 Turbo you had here a couple days ago.”

“Look, man, we bought that fair and square,” the man stammered. “We got the papers and all.”

Steve looked down at the nameplate on the desk and then squarely in the man’s nervous eyes. “Not interested in that, Fred. Where’d you get it?”

“I can’t give up my sources!”

Steve leaned on the desk, muscles bulging, and watched as sweat dripped down Fred’s forehead. “I think maybe you can.”

“Look, alright, okay, it was that kid, Joey, down on Greenbriar. He always brings things in fair and square; I don’t have no beef with him. I ain’t looking for any more trouble with the cops, alright?”

“We ain’t the cops,” Sam said. “How do we find that kid?”

“He stays at his gram’s. Just go out here, take a left at the first light, cross the street, there’s a sharp curve, and you’ll see a dumpster on the right. Turn there, take the first left, and it’s number 17.”

Steve nodded like he knew exactly where Fred was describing. “You’ve been very helpful, Fred. I’ll remember that.”

“No, no, no, don’t remember me. Forget me,” he stammered. “I ain’t ever seen you.”

As Sam and Steve left the garage, Fred picked up his phone and dialed a number the kid had given him. It rang several times before picking up. “Welcome to Verizon Wireless. The number you have dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and dial again.” He swore.

Joey was much less amenable to talking until he recognized Sam as the Falcon, and then the words just starting tripping out. “Look, alright, Ima tell you, but I ain’t gonna tell anyone I saw you or anything; you gotta be on the downlow or something if you out here, but it was some weird shit, lemme tell you.”

Steve skulked in the shadows over by the car while Sam asked questions. “What kinda weird shit, little man?”

“So, like, I gotta be above board an’ all, right? I got outta juvie, got my GED, and Ima make somethin’ outta myself, but I was told to be on the lookout for some foreign car over on Presstown. See, that’s where I useta be, that’s why I was in juvie, got caught cooking meth, and I still know the people down there, but I ain’t in that shit now.”

“You gon’ make something of yourself, get your family outta here.”

“Yeah, man, I knew you’d get me. You got yourself outta some shit back in Harlem,” Joey’s face lit up. “So I’ll tell you, alright. Some messed up shit goes down there still, but I got the call to go, and like, I still got bills to pay. I got a couple kids and child support, and I wanna do those kids right.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. Joey couldn’t be more than 17, and he already had a couple kids? “Yeah, sure,” Sam said. “You wanna do them better than you were done.”

“Right! So I go there, and everything’s like the call said. Key is in the ignition. The title’s signed. It all checks out, and I’m not gonna ask no questions. I knew Fred would take it, and I’d get a couple bills out of it. But it was weird, bro.”

“Yeah, what was weird about it, little man?”

“I’m talking to the kid across the street, one of the guys that can’t get themselves off glass, and he swears he saw a guy drop off the car with a woman and a kid.”

Steve straightened, but Sam ignored him. “Yeah? They look alright?”

“He didn’t say nothing, so I guess so, but the guy, that’s the weird thing. He said the guy had a metal hand.”

Sam talked to Joey a couple minutes more, slipping him a Walmart giftcard out of the pile he kept handy in his wallet for homeless people and vets. “Thanks, man, you been real helpful. You gonna do alright. Just keep thinking about your babies and your Gram.”

“Yeah, man.”

Sam slipped into the driver’s side and started the car, driving back to the airport automatically. Steve stayed silent. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

Steve shrugged. “We knew Hydra might have gotten him back.”

“Yeah, but it’s more than that.” Steve shook his head, and Sam fell silent before changing direction. “Let’s check out their place.”

Sam used the GPS on his phone to direct them through town while Steve ran searches on his tablet. “Jane was right. There’s nothing on them after they left.”

“No reports of a man with a silver arm?” Sam asked, pulling into Darcy’s parking spot.

“No. Not really surprising. He’s masked it for over a year.”

Steve got out of the car and climbed the staircase to Darcy’s door, unlocking it and stepping inside. The car beeped as Sam locked it, and Steve watched him go to the neighbor’s door before looking around Darcy’s apartment. There was detritus of their morning breakfast from several days ago, and that had started to smell, so he washed the few dishes, went through the refrigerator to get rid of perishables, and emptied the trash.

That done, he went back in the living room. It looked untouched from how he knew Darcy would have left it, a throw flung on the arm rest and remotes in a pile on the couch; Darcy had never been the tidiest person, but Patrick’s play area was fairly neat, Legos all in their container and his art supplies in their cubbies. He went into Patrick’s bedroom; no clothes or books looked like they were missing. _Mr Popper’s Penguins_ , the book they were reading together, was sitting on his nightstand, and Steve sat on the edge of the bed to thumb through it; a bookmark was in the same place where he had folded the paper’s edge in his copy.

Shaking himself, he looked at Patrick’s room more critically. He wasn’t trained in assessing crime scenes, but nothing looked out of place or different from the last time he’d been here. He moved on to Darcy’s room, which was a lot messier than Patrick’s had been, with an unmade bed and jewelry strewn on the dresser. He picked up a necklace he’d given her, fingering it, and slipped it into a zipper pocket on his jacket. Steve glanced into the bathroom and then met Sam back in the living room. “Nothing seems out of place.”

“The neighbor next door says no one has come by, and everything that morning was normal.”

“There’s nothing here,” Steve tried to look stoic, but he was pretty sure Sam could see right through him. “Bucky took them, and they didn’t come back here.”

“We’ll go back to the Tower. See what FRIDAY can find,” Sam said, throwing an arm around Steve’s waist and pulling him into his side. Steve went willingly, and Sam kissed the side of his head. “We’ll find them.”

“Let’s just go. We’re wasting time. There’s nothing more to find.”

They got back to the airfield quickly, and Sam automatically went through the checklist and lifted off, setting a course for the Tower. “Steve, if Bucky knew who they were, you know he wouldn’t have done anything to them.”

“Except we don’t know that he knew who they were. We don’t know,” Steve said, getting up to pace the small area in the cockpit. “Goddammit. If he knows who he is, why would he have taken them? If he doesn’t, there’s nothing to say that they’re still alive.” Steve looked bleakly at Sam. “I love you, Sam, but the three of them, they’re...”

He broke off. Sam reached over and took Steve’s hand to pull him back to the seat but said nothing. “Was I pushin’ her away, Sam?”

“You wanna talk about this now?” Sam let go of Steve’s hand and gestured to the sky before them.

“She said I wanted to keep her in a box.”

“She was mad.”

“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t right.”

Sam looked at Steve. “Hey, Steve, this isn’t your fault. It’s not Darcy’s fault.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, Sam,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “My head knows it’s not our fault.”

“Your heart though?”

“My heart wants them in the suite next to mine. I know, I mean, I do realize it wouldn’t be good for either of ‘em, but… everything’s just been spiraling out of control in the past year.”

Sam nodded. “And you wanna control and protect what you can.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “Except it’s hard to keep someone safe if they don’t want it.”

“We’ll find them. We’ll find Bucky. You’ll get the rest of your family back.”

Steve reached over and gripped Sam’s hand hard. “Thanks.”

They were halfway to New York City when the world went black, and the quinjet started to plummet to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written before Sam's history was retconned, so Joey is referencing Sam's criminal history as "Snap" Wilson. Joey himself is written to be a composite of a lot of the people I've met through work the past few years; I'm not great at dialects, so I was trying it out.
> 
> Next chapter Sunday night!


	4. part two: had better things to do (1/4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a warning, there is a mercy killing of a hurt animal at the very end of the chapter. It's not graphic.

Darcy eased back into consciousness slowly. Her leg felt like it was on fire, and she could hear sniffling in the back seat. “Patrick, baby?”

“Mommy, mommy, are you okay?” Patrick said, his voice hoarse.

“I don’t know, Patrick. How long has it been?”

“A long time. I tried to get out, but I can’t undo these straps. I wanna get out, Mommy, get me out.”

Darcy took stock of the rest of her body, and aside from what she knew would be some killer whiplash and her leg, it felt like just bruises. She had no way to know if she had a neck injury, but hanging over the front seat wasn’t going to do either Patrick or her any good. Trying to keep her head and neck straight, she gingerly eased herself back into the back seat. “Fuck!”

“Mommy!”

“Sorry, baby, it’s my leg.” A wave of nausea passed over her, and she bit her lip trying to anchor herself in the present. Little hands patted her face, and she looked at Patrick for the first time. The car seat had held him in place, and other than snot and tears and a red face, he looked okay. “Are you okay, Patrick?”

“Yeah,” he answered, his eyes fixed on her face. “I just been waiting for you and Uncle Bucky.”

Darcy whipped her head back around to the front seat and grimaced as her neck protested the quick movement. Bucky was still seatbelted in, and he looked okay enough, but his head was hanging down. “Bucky?”

The airbags were deployed, and there wasn’t any damage to the front end of the car that she could see. The road hadn’t had a lot of traffic, and they weren’t driving through a forest, so it’d be unlikely they had hit a deer. Darcy unbuckled Patrick from his seat, and he immediately clambered out and onto her lap, hugging her hard.

Darcy looked outside. About a hundred yards in front of her, an 18-wheeler had jack-knifed across the road. Just a little bit behind her in the left lane, another car was stopped dead. Their airbag didn’t look like it had gone off. The highway was separated, so she couldn’t see what had happened on the other side, but it didn’t seem likely to be any better. “Bucky,” she tried again.

She thumped her head back against the seat and winced in pain. “Mommy, there’s someone coming.”

Darcy managed to open her eyes as the driver from the truck in front of them ambled towards them. He was carrying a duffel bag and looked unharmed. She tried to move, but her leg sent pain rocketing through her body. “Shit. Patrick, honey, can you climb back on the other side of your car seat please and see if you can check on Bucky?”

When the man knocked on her window, Patrick was kneeling on the console in between the seats, staring into Bucky’s face. “He’s breathing, Mommy.”

“Okay. That’s good. Can you get the car keys out?”

“Okay, Mommy, and then I think we need a nap.”

Darcy smiled, but it came out as more of a grimace as the adrenaline started to leave her body, and pain began to emanate from the rest of her body. She waved at the man, who opened her car door. “You folks alright? I’m Ned.”

Darcy shook her head. “My son’s fine, but my leg’s broken. There’s a first aid kit in the back if you get the keys from Patrick.”

Ned nodded. “Sure thing, ma’am. What about him?”

Ned pointed at Bucky with his chin, and Darcy closed her eyes, thinking. “If you get me the kit, I can take care of my leg, and then you can check on him.” Patrick was sitting on the front seat, patting Bucky’s arm. “I’m Darcy, by the way. You know what happened?”

“Nah. All I know is that shortwave radio ain’t working, neither’s my phone, and the truck’s dead. I get you folks helped out, and I’m gonna hoof it down to the last exit we passed,” Ned answered, his voice fading as he headed to the back of the car and popped the rear door. “Wooee, lady, you got yourselves a first aid kit alright.”

“Yeah, a little bit paranoid,” Darcy lied. “Guess it was worth it.”

“Stark bone setter and all; good thing it ain’t electric,” Ned shook his head and set the case on the seat next to her. “Alright, let me go check on your man there.”

Darcy thought about setting Ned straight, but it wasn’t worth the energy. Instead, she dug through the kit for scissors and cut her pants off at the knee, listening to Ned explain to Patrick what exactly he was doing to check Bucky. She swabbed her swollen leg with an antibiotic wipe and took a deep breath before stabbing the large-bore needle into her leg and pressing the plunger. Tears streamed down her face as she felt the nano-tech doing their job of pushing the bone back into place and forming a cohesive seal around it. She didn’t even want to know what Tony did to test this before it went for FDA approval. “Mommy?”

“I hurt my leg, baby; this is going to fix it. Just gimme a couple minutes, okay?” she managed to bite out.

“Okay. Can I have a fruit snack?” Patrick asked.

“Yep.”

Darcy heard footsteps round the car again and stop in front of her. “Ma’am, your boy in there is just out cold. Looks like the airbag and seatbelt did its job. He doesn’t look to have any injuries. You folks be alright if I leave?”

Darcy nodded. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll be able to get up in about ten minutes if the directions are correct, and there’s some Ibuprofen in the kit.”

“Alright,” Ned answered, closing the door to the car after locking it. “Stay safe.”

Darcy closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat as his footsteps faded into the distance. “I’m just gonna take a nap, okay, baby?”

#######

Patrick was conked out, hugging his stuffed teddy, and Bucky was gingerly moving his limbs when Darcy woke up. She checked out her leg, but while it still hurt, it felt like it could hold weight. “Bucky?”

He groaned. She held her breath and tried again. “Bucky? You awake?”

“My arm,” he whimpered. “Can’t move my arm. It’s, oh my God, Darcy, help me, please.”

Bucky had never sounded like that, cadences of the Brooklyn accent she recognized from Steve in his voice. He’d also never said please. “What the fuck happened?” Darcy asked, not expecting an answer as she slipped from the backseat and went around to the driver’s side. “Are you okay?”

Bucky’s eyes locked on hers the second she was close enough, and she nearly recoiled from the desperation and fear in them. He flinched, and she tried to recover. “Darcy, you gotta help me. I need it off.”

Darcy stepped closer, and her stomach dropped at the blood matting the remnants of his shirt. There was no telling how long Bucky had been awake or how long he’d been clawing at the socket where the metal arm fused to his shoulder. “What happened, Bucky?”

“Dunno, but it’s not responding, and I remember,” his voice broke. “I remember.”

She nodded. “How did they get it off?”

“They didn’t. They just did what they needed to with it attached. Or maybe it was when I was still out of it from being frozen. Darcy, I need it off.” Bucky pursed his lips tightly together and clenched his flesh hand, taking short breaths in his nose and out his mouth. “Off.”

“Okay, I’m going to go get the tool kit out of the back, Bucky, and then I’ll be right back,” Darcy said. “Try to think if there was a panel they would use for repairs or anything, okay?”

He nodded, and Darcy scurried to grab the small screwdrivers and pliers, sticking a pistol from their duffel in the back of her jeans. The arm was an engineering marvel, and she hated to see it mangled, but it was Bucky’s arm and his decision. When she got back to his door, he pointed to an area of his arm and then turned to look out the passenger side of the car. “Bucky, I need to know for sure. You want me to try to take this off? I’m not an engineer.”

“You ain’t a mechanic either, but you fixed up your car,” Bucky responded before repeating himself. “I need it off.”

Darcy blew out a breath harshly before squaring her shoulders. “What the hell? Why not?” she muttered. “If I had known taking that internship with Jane would lead to being stranded on the side of the road in motherfucking Virginia with a nonagenerian hopefully former assassin and Captain America’s three-year-old kid...”

Bucky snorted. “You woulda still done it.”

Darcy found a panel that had a different sheen to it and slid the flathead screwdriver underneath it, searching until she heard a click. “Yeah, well, maybe I wouldn’t have had sex with Steve.”

“You regret the kid?” Bucky asked.

“Nah,” Darcy said. “It’s just not what I had planned.”

“Life never is.”

Bucky fell silent with that understatement, and Darcy had decided to complain more quietly to herself just as the panel popped open. The tiny computer screen was very much not lit up, and Darcy cursed. “So there’s supposed to be some sort of power to the arm, I’m guessing, and that’s not working.”

“Nothing electronic is,” Bucky stated. “That’s why the car stopped.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t realize, hon?”

“Well, I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Hm.”

“Alright, I think I’ll just hit this button and see what it does.”

With a thunk, the arm detached at the shoulder socket; Darcy tried to grab it before it hit the side of the car, but her leg collapsed at the extra weight, and both the arm and Darcy ended up on the highway. Grumbling, she pulled herself back up using the doorframe. Bucky was looking determinedly out the passenger window. “What’s it look like?”

“Um,” Darcy paused before answering. The socket was beautiful in a way, sleek, silver, with wires coiled and leading into his body, and ‘Property of Stark Industries’ stenciled neatly near the bottom. “There’s a bunch of wires. You’d need actual surgery to get the plate out, Bucky, and I can’t do that. I don’t know where the wires go. “

“Brain and spinal cord,” he answered shortly. “How they repressed memories and controlled me.”

“Yeah, I’m not touching that,” she said immediately. “If we get somewhere that still has power and has an MRI and X-Ray, then we can at least see where they go and if they’re still sending anything or if they’re safe to try to remove.”

Bucky shook his head. “They’re not transmitting. That was all hooked into the power source on the arm.”

“That’s why you remember?”

“Yes,” Bucky said, the word clipped short.

Patrick yawned, and Darcy started. Looking in the back seat, she could see him begin to wake up. “What’s the next step, Bucky? We need to get out of here.”

Having a purpose cleared Bucky’s countenance. “We’ll continue traveling north. Next exit’s a couple miles up. I’ll get the bag ready. You check out that other car, see if there’s anything useful.”

As Darcy walked across the road, she could hear Patrick scramble over the seat and start jabbering to Bucky. Before she even reached the car, she could pick out grey and rust-red splotches on the dashboard, and the smell in the car after she opened it - even only after a couple hours - made her retch. The woman who’d been driving hadn’t had a seat belt on, and the airbag hadn’t deployed. There was nothing Darcy could do for her, but she made herself check for a pulse anyway before looking for the woman’s purse and license.

There was a whimper from the back seat, and Darcy turned to look. Her heart clenched. A black-and-white dog was matted with blood, and she could see rib bones poking through his fur. The dog lifted his head slightly when he heard the car door open and whimpered again. “Shush, sweetheart, it’ll be okay,” Darcy said, carefully patting his snout.

The dog’s tail moved a little, and Darcy held back her tears. She was strong enough; she could handle this. Blood flecked the dog’s saliva, and every time he took a shallow breath, he wheezed and whimpered in pain. “It’s okay, handsome; I’m not gonna let you suffer like this.”

There was the press of a slightly dry, rough tongue to her hand, and Darcy clenched her teeth. “I’m sorry; it’ll be over soon.”

Bucky looked over when the gun went off, but Darcy staggered out of the car, her hand covering her mouth, and waved him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter Tuesday. In the meantime, as always, I'm on [tumblr](timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com).


	5. part two: had better things to do (2/4)

Darcy waited to talk to Bucky until they’d stopped for the night a little ways from the closest town. “We need a plan. I hope this’ll all get fixed soon, but if it’s not, Patrick can’t walk for weeks; he’s too young.”

The boy in question was curled up in a small tent and sleeping bag, snoring softly. Bucky had looted a small camping goods store and was currently fiddling with a headlamp, trying to read a map. “Your family is near Lancaster. We can average about ten miles a day with the kid, so that should take us less than two weeks if we follow the Appalachian Trail north. Need to avoid people.”

“I’m wearing Converse sneakers; I’m not going to be able to walk that far for that many days without shredding my feet,” Darcy answered, sitting next to him. “Patrick can’t walk more than a couple miles. He’s 3.”

“I can rig something up and carry him.”

Darcy pushed the point. “And the duffel bag?”

Bucky snorted. “I’m enhanced, remember? Steve could run 30 miles in a couple hours, so I’m pretty sure I can handle a duffel bag and a 30-pound boy.”

Darcy rubbed her forehead. “Not the point.”

“Honey, I got a lifetime of memories all swirlin’ around my brain right now,” Bucky said. “Say what you mean. I gotta go soon.”

Darcy sat back abruptly, his words a punch to her gut. “Oh.”

Bucky had no reason to stay with them anymore. He could travel much faster alone than she could with Patrick. She and Patrick were making it worse just by being there. She dropped her head on her knees and breathed in slowly, counting five seconds between each breath, trying to stave off her panic attack. Bucky’s hand rested softly on her back. “You’re not beholden to us,” Darcy said. “You can go.”

“I meant leave to do a perimeter check and acquaint myself with one of those trees. I took you and Patrick from your home. I intend to return you to one,” he answered carefully. “I’ll try to understand what you need.”

Darcy nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not gonna break,” Bucky said simply. “I’ll be straight with you.”

They sat together for a couple minutes, breathing in the silence. Darcy shook herself and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Okay, well, if you can carry Patrick, that’d be great, but eventually, we’re going to run out of food,” she said. “I’ll need better shoes.”

“I’ll go back to that store; there were running shoes there. Be easier now in the dark. We got food for a couple days.”

Darcy dug around in her back pocket and pulled out a thin plastic card. “This is the license for the woman in that car. I want to stop there and see if she has family.”

Bucky took the card and squinted at the address. “Front Royal’s on the way to your family. We should be there in a few days. We can look for more food there.”

#######

It was clear the following day that while Bucky had grown up with younger sisters and had known to keep Patrick entertained in the car, he had no idea what to do with a toddler when trekking cross-country. Patrick was excited enough the first half-day to be out walking and having an adventure, and then the whining set in. Darcy kept him going by playing I-Spy, and when he started stumbling, she helped Bucky strap the boy to his arm-less side. The excitement about that didn’t last for long, and had Patrick not been tied securely to Bucky, he would have fallen off. As it was, Darcy thought Bucky might accidentally drop him. “Uncle Bucky, are we there yet?”

“No.”

“How much longer do we hafta goooo?”

“A while.”

“I wanna see Daddy.”

“He’s not here.”

“Are we there yet now?”

Bucky didn’t answer, and Patrick huffed, kicked his feet, and started poking the shoulder socket. “Mommy, why is Mr Stark’s name on Uncle Bucky’s shoulder?”

Darcy hadn’t gotten there yet in the files, hadn’t known she should have even been looking for that until after she’d gotten the arm off. “I don’t know.”

“Uncle Bucky, do you know?”

“No.”

“Really?” Darcy asked before she could stop herself. The trail they were on split at that point, and Bucky stopped walking, looking down each path. “Take the path less traveled by?” she suggested.

“Had to read that in school,” Bucky answered. He shook himself and started walking down the left path, stepping carefully over a tree root. Darcy hopped over it. “I don’t remember ever seein’ Howard after.”

“Who’s Howard?” Patrick asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar name.

“Tony’s dad,” Darcy replied. “He died a long time before you were born.”

“Oh,” Patrick said. Darcy could see him thinking that through and smiled at his face. “I didn’t know Mr Stark had a daddy.”

“Everyone has a daddy.”

“Kid, do you ever stop asking questions?” Bucky finally burst in.

“Aunt Jane says I have a ‘quiztif mind, and no one should stifle it.”

“Does Aunt Jane ever take you on hikes,” Bucky asked under his breath.

“Nooooo,” Patrick answered. “We look at stars at night sometimes.”

Darcy barely managed to stifle her laughter. “Patrick, baby, it’s naptime.”

“I don’t wanna,” he said, laying his head on Bucky’s shoulder stump regardless.

That night, Bucky asked Darcy’s opinion on two things: splitting up their clothes and food between two packs and whether or not toddlers could be gagged. Looking at his grin, she figured they might just make it through this.

#######

June gave Darcy another hug. “Thank you, dear. It’s better to know what happened to her and little Fievel.”

Darcy swallowed hard. “Well, I just... I’ve got to go try to find my people myself, and since her license said she lived here, and I knew we’d pass the town, well, I hoped I’d to be able to find her family to let them know. I’d want to know.”

“As soon as we can, I’ll find a way to go get her and...” June trailed off.

Patrick tugged on Darcy’s jeans. “Mommy, we need to go meet Uncle Bucky.”

“I know, baby,” Darcy said. “I’m glad I found you, June. I’m sorry about Fievel, but he wouldn’t have survived the time it took to get here. I didn’t want him to suffer any more.”

“You did what was right,” June said. “You stay safe now, get back home. Whatever happened, it’s not going to be a quick fix.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Darcy answered before turning around and walking down the front path to the street. “Alright, Patrick, where were we supposed to meet Uncle Bucky?”

“At Walmart,” he said, holding her hand with both of his and jumping. “Mommy, why don’t any of the cars or lights work?”

“They all run on computers, and since computers aren’t working, they can’t either.”

Patrick gasped. “Does that mean Mr JARVIS isn’t working either?”

“I don’t know. I think Mr Stark would have protected him, don’t you?” Darcy asked, turning the corner and tugging Patrick closer to her.

The shopping center parking lot was strewn with glass, blood, and bodies. Darcy picked their way through carefully and lifted Patrick through the broken formerly-automatic door. The Redbox was on its side, empty of DVDs. “Mommy, if computers aren’t working, why did people take those?”

“I don’t know, baby,” Darcy answered, distracted, looking for Bucky. “I don’t see Bucky. What did we need to get?”

“You said you needed lady pads,” Patrick looked up at her and smirked. “Lady pads do not go on babies, Mommy.”

Darcy shook her head. “That was one time, Patrick. ONE TIME. Why did your dad even tell you that story? You wouldn’t have remembered!”

Patrick giggled, and Darcy picked him up and tickled his sides, both of them laughing. “Okay. I need some pads or tampons, and what do you need, baby?”

“Fruit snacks!” Patrick shouted, clambering down from Darcy’s arms.

“Alright, we’ll go check out what’s left in food,” Darcy answered, eyes focused on what was left on the shelves. “We should get some laundry soap.”

Patrick gave his shirt a sniff. “I smell fine.”

“You smell gross, Patrick,” Darcy said. “I probably do too.”

The two turned down the main aisle to the food section and found Bucky waiting about fifty feet in front of them, a camping pack on his back and one resting against his legs. Patrick made an attempt to run to him, but Darcy held him back. “Do I get a pack too, Mommy?”

“Maybe. Someone has to carry your bear.”

“Any problems?” Bucky asked, handing over the other pack to Darcy and a smaller nylon bag to Patrick, which held a water bottle and his coloring books and bear.

Bucky was lilting over, trying to compensate for both the lack of his metal arm and the weight of the pack, and Patrick poked him in an attempt to straighten him out. “Patrick, put your pack on please,” Darcy said. “No problems. The woman was on her way home from college for the summer; it was her mom’s house.”

“Good,” Bucky said. “I picked up a bar of laundry soap and some new clothes for the two of you.”

“I want fruit snacks,” Patrick requested.

Bucky quirked an eyebrow at Darcy. “Don’t they have, what was it, high fructose corn syrup?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I get the organic kind, but I don’t think it matters right now.”

Patrick hopped along next to Darcy as they reached the desolate candy aisle. Neither were ready for Bucky to push them into the aisle and hold his hand over Patrick’s mouth. “You said a kid and a woman came in the store, Jethro. Where are they?”

Darcy’s eyes widened at the rough voice coming from the main entrance of the store. “I don’t know, boss,” came a nasally voice. “I saw ‘em come in a couple minutes ago and came and got you. I ain’t seen anyone else in a while.”

“They have anything on ‘em?”

“Nah, boss, but the girl looked good.”

Bucky slowly took his pack off and put it on the once-full bread shelf, stowing Darcy’s pack a little further down behind a couple squashed packages of hot dog buns. Darcy knelt down and held Patrick close, taking off his shoes so they wouldn’t squeak and stowing them in his little bag. She couldn’t hear the men’s footsteps, but Bucky was listening intently. Bucky pointed at them and then swiped his hand to the clothes’ section in front of them.

Darcy moved quickly, Patrick running beside her. She stowed him in the middle of the women’s section, in a circular rack still full of clearance-priced items. His head poked out between zebra-print plus-size leggings, and Darcy shook her head, putting a finger on her lips. Crouching close to the ground, she moved back closer to Bucky, hiding in another rack, this one of brightly colored shirts. She had scarcely taken a breath when Bucky slipped in with her. “Did they leave?” Darcy whispered.

Without muzak and the noise of other people, the Walmart was eerily silent, and Darcy could now hear the two different sets of footsteps walking around. “Patrick okay?” Bucky mouthed.

Darcy nodded and tried to sit instead of crouch, but there wasn’t enough room, and she would have fallen if not for Bucky grabbing her arm. His breath washed across her face, and she looked in his eyes, which were focused outside the rack, but he turned and looked down at her, his whole face softening. “It’ll be okay,” he mouthed. “They’ll be gone soon.”

The moment could have been romantic if it wasn’t for the rancid smell in the store, the hiding from people with nefarious intentions, and the fact neither of them had had a shower in several days and had spent that time hiking at least ten miles a day. Darcy was all-too-aware of the layers of sweat and grime caked on her skin and in her hair. Bucky looked at her intently and, without shifting his weight or losing his balance, tucked her hair behind her ear. “I ain’t seein’ ‘em in the store,” the boss bellowed. “They musta left when you came to get me.”

“Can’t have gone too far,” Jethro responded. “Not with a kid.”

The two men argued as they walked out the store, and Bucky pulled back to whisper. “Don’t move until I get back.”

Darcy sank to the floor, resting her forehead on her dirty jeans and holding her knees so her hands wouldn't shake. Bucky came back a couple minutes later, thrusting a hand in through the shirts and pulling her out, and Darcy went to get Patrick before meeting him back where their bags were stashed. Neither said anything to each other, focused on finding Patrick the last box of fruit snacks, which the boy proudly put in his little canvas bag.

#######

That night, back on the trail, they stopped beside a river. Patrick played quietly in the shallows as Darcy washed their dirty clothes. Bucky sat on the bank, cleaning their two pistols. Darcy stood, cracked her back, and gathered the little pile of laundry. “I’m going to hang this up,” she said. “Watch Patrick for a couple minutes?” Bucky nodded. “Patrick, time to use some soap.”

Patrick wrinkled his nose but took the bar from Darcy as she walked by. Bucky finished reloading, sighting down the pistol before putting them well above the water line and walking down to Patrick. “Need any help?”

“No,” Patrick said. “I can wash myself.”

Bucky watched as Patrick very carefully ran the soap over all his body parts, singing to himself. “What about your hair?”

Patrick sighed and rubbed the bar in his hair before carefully setting it down on a rock where it was only partly submerged. Bucky came closer and helped Patrick suds up the soap and rinse out his hair. “Uncle Bucky, you should take a bath too.”

“I should?”

“Yes,” Patrick said firmly. “If I have to smell good, so do you.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Bucky took a step back from the water’s edge and undressed, leaving his boxer-briefs on until he’d squatted underneath the water. “Can I have the soap?”

Patrick very carefully handed the soap to Bucky and watched avidly as Bucky soaped up his body and washed the dirty pair of underwear. “Does that hurt if it gets wet?”

“What? The arm socket?” Bucky asked. Patrick nodded. “No, it hurt a long time ago when they put it in, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“That’s good.”

“Patrick, you ready for some clean clothes?” Darcy asked, walking back down the hill to the river with a set of Bucky’s clothes.

“Aw, do I hafta get out?”

“Yeah, it’s bedtime for little kids.” Patrick sighed but wiggled his way out of the water and up to Darcy, his feet getting dirty along the way. She swung him up, using Bucky’s dirty t-shirt to wipe off his feet. “Bucky, I’d like to take a bath, so come up when you’re done?”

Bucky nodded, and Darcy went back up, holding the giggling boy. Then he sunk under the water, soaping and rinsing his hair. The river was quiet and peaceful, and he could almost imagine he was back in Europe with Steve. A deer crashed through the underbrush to the water’s edge, and their dark eyes met. He didn’t dare move and break the spell of quiet. It had been so long since he’d been able to choose the quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the non-cliffhanger. :) Next chapter Thursday!


	6. part two: had better things to do (3/4)

A few days later, the three were holed up in an abandoned house in Harper’s Ferry. They lit the propane grill and cooked what food was still edible in the warm freezer before bedding down in the living room on a mattress dragged from one of the bedrooms. “Can I have eggs in the morning, Mommy?” Patrick asked, his voice fuzzy with sleep. “Since we’re in a house?”

“Maybe, baby,” Darcy said, rubbing his back. “Go to sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

She stood up, stretching her back, and took off her shoes and socks before looking around for Bucky. It was still early enough there was some light coming in through windows. It was eerie to not hear the constant hum of electricity or see lights turning on in houses around them, and Darcy shivered before she went into the dining room, only to see Bucky with an array of weaponry laid out on the table. “Um. Did you have all that hidden in your pack?”

Bucky shook his head. “No, I cracked their gun safe.”

“Oh. Okay,” She sat down to his left, and he turned to look at her. “What are we gonna do?”

“I’m going to get you to your family,” Bucky said slowly.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t know what else to say,” Bucky answered. “That’s what’s important: you and Patrick safe.”

“Bucky, I’m not going to sit idly by in farm country while my friends and my child’s father are out there.”

Bucky nodded. “I know. I’ll let them know where you are. I’ll move faster without the two of you.”

“Steve and I made plans for something like this. He’s got land up in Vermont, off the grid; no one else knows about it. I’m supposed to go there with Patrick and wait.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Darcy said. “We’d be going in the same direction regardless.”

“And you didn’t want to tell me,” Bucky guessed. “My head being fucked up isn’t going to affect my ability to walk.”

Darcy picked up one of the bullets on the table and rolled it in her hands, not looking at Bucky. “Not what I meant.”

“Second time you’ve said that. You wanna say something you mean?”

“Ah, fuck you, Barnes,” she said, slamming the bullet back on the table. “I didn’t want you to leave us, so I was trying to figure out what to do. Is that plain enough?”

Bucky opened his mouth to retort, but he winced in pain, and his hand came up to rub at his head. “Just go sleep, kid; we’ve got a long couple days ahead of us.”

Rolling her shoulders, Darcy stood up, roughly pushing the chair in, and went to lie down near her son. She woke up once when Bucky came in and laid down on the couch and then didn’t wake up again until it was pitch black outside. It took her a minute to place where she was, but when she did, she could hear hitched breathing and another stifled yelp of pain. It was too far away to be Patrick. She rolled over, attempting to look like she was still asleep, and didn’t wake up again until dawn crept across the front room.

#######

There was an unspoken détente the next couple days. Darcy picked up a wildlife book and a Polaroid camera in a camping store they passed and tried to teach Patrick about different flora and fauna they saw on the trail. She made Bucky take a picture of her and Patrick when they crossed the Mason-Dixon line. She was trying not to think about it, but if they didn’t make it to Lancaster, at least the pictures would reassure Steve they had been mostly okay when he found them or their bodies. Steve would find them; she wouldn’t let herself think otherwise.

They had passed into Pennsylvania and were staying at a shelter on the trail when Bucky broached the subject of Steve again. “I told you before I wasn’t going to break. Why wouldn’t you tell me about Steve’s safe house?”

“I should have,” Darcy said. “I’m sorry.”

“Is it because of Steve? You and him aren’t married. Wasn’t in the file.”

“No, not really,” Darcy said shortly, passing Patrick some beef jerky. “And we never were married, you’re right.”

“He didn’t ask after you got pregnant?”

“He did.”

“You said no?” Bucky asked. “Steve’s a good man; he’d have taken care of you and Patrick.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and turned to face him. “Bucky, I know you know better than that. Steve told me about your sister’s friend.”

“Henry and Isabella aren’t the same as you and Steve.”

“Steve and I are fine with the relationship we have. I don’t need him to take care of us.”

“But Patrick...”

“You’re not going to say a boy needs a father, are you, since Steve’s mom raised him alone.” Bucky ran his hand over his face, and Darcy took pity on him. “Patrick, can you go color?”

“Sure, Mommy,” the boy agreed and ran off to find his coloring book and crayons.

“Steve and I tried to make a relationship go, and we had just about decided we were better as friends that occasionally hooked up when I found out I was pregnant.”

Bucky nodded. “Okay, but.”

“But nothing,” Darcy interrupted. “Of course Steve asked me to marry him, but the reasons we were better as friends weren’t going to go away just because I got knocked up. If I marry, I want it to be because I’m madly in love with someone who adores me. Steve and I are great friends, even better co-parents, and we share financial responsibility for Patrick and sometimes have sex, but that’s it.”

“And Steve’s okay with that?”

Darcy snorted. “Took a while, but Steve was eventually fine with it. If he had married me, he wouldn’t have been free to be with Sam.”

Bucky nodded. “Where does that leave you?”

“Wherever I want to be,” she said. “I have full custody because of paper trails, but that’s only paper. Steve’s his father, but I have my own life.”

“But you don’t have someone.”

“Hard to date when you have a kid,” Darcy said and shrugged. “I don’t need someone. Sure if it was the right person, but Patrick comes first. And it’s hard with Patrick’s dad being Captain America, you know?”

“Steve always used to say he was waiting for the right partner.”

Darcy smiled. “Me too.”

Bucky nodded. “I useta want a family, back before the War. After Hydra and then Steve gettin’ us outta that base, I didn’t know if it were possible. Guess it really isn’t now.” He stood up. “I’ll be back. Stay here.”

Darcy watched him walk off, his hand clenching rhythmically at his side. Patrick wandered back over, his brow furrowed and a crayon stuck in his mouth. “Patrick, what did Daddy tell you?”

Patrick pulled the crayon out and frowned. “Respect your pencils, even if they’re wax,” he said sullenly.

“What’s up, buttercup?”

“How much longer?”

“I think it’s about five, maybe six days before we might see my parents.”

“I’m tired of walking.”

“I know, baby; I am too,” she answered, pulling him in between her legs. “It’s the only way we can go right now.”

“Couldn’t Mr Stark have fixed things by now?”

“Some things, sure, but not all things. We were in a town a couple days ago, remember?”

Patrick nodded. “The lights weren’t working.”

Darcy held Patrick for a couple minutes until he shook her off and went back to grab his coloring book. “Whatcha colored today?”

“This page had a picture of Uncle Clint,” Patrick said, showing her his carefully-filled in drawing. “I don’t have a purple crayon though. I tried to mix the red and blue, but it didn’t work like when Daddy does it with paints.”

“I bet Uncle Clint will like it though. You know he’s not in the coloring books very often.”

“’S stupid,” Patrick muttered. “He’s better than stupid Iron Man.”

Patrick stayed coloring beside her for a little while, and Darcy took a picture of him before repacking her pack and getting things ready for night. “Baby, time for bed.”

“Just a couple minutes more? Please? Uncle Bucky’s not back yet.”

“Go ahead inside, and you can color until I get the forks cleaned, but then it’s to bed with you.”

“Okay.”

Darcy turned around when she heard footsteps coming down the path. Bucky never made noise. “Hello the camp!” came a cheerful shout.

“Hello,” Darcy called back.

An older couple in hiking clothes with walking sticks came out into the clearing. “Well, good evening. We haven’t seen anyone on the Trail in days.”

Darcy smiled as she shook their hands. “We haven’t seen anyone in a while either.”

The older woman sat down near Darcy and bent over to untie her hiking boots. “Name’s Mel, and that’s Cody. We’re hiking down to Georgia to be near his family.”

“Darcy. Patrick’s my son. James is out walking around; he’ll be back.”

“Where y’all headed?” Cody asked, filling his canteen at the water pump.

“Near Lancaster. My family’s there.”

Cody nodded. “Trail doesn’t go near there. You’ll have to get off it.”

“That’s what we plan on,” Bucky said, materializing on the other side of the clearing. “Where are you from?”

His voice was clipped. Mel and Cody seemed like perfectly normal people, albeit ones who were walking most of the Appalachian Trail with no support, but then again, so were they. “New Hampshire. You must be James,” Cody said, taking in the missing arm. “You served?”

“Army,” Bucky answered. “Patrick, you in bed?”

“Almost, Uncle Bucky, just telling Bear a story,” Patrick said, sticking his head out of the hut.

“Go to sleep, baby,” Darcy said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Darcy didn’t really want to leave Bucky alone with the couple, but she had to tuck Patrick in. She glanced at Bucky, hoping he’d see it as a warning, before going into the hut. “We’ll see Daddy soon, right?” Patrick asked.

“We’re going to see Grandma and Grandpa first,” Darcy answered. “You know that.”

“I like Uncle Bucky when he’s not being blank and scary, but he’s not my daddy,” Patrick whispered forlornly.

“I know. Sure as rain, baby, we’re gonna see Steve again.”

When Patrick was asleep, Darcy slipped back out. In those five minutes, Bucky had managed to tie up the older couple and was rifling through their belongings. “Bucky!”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Soon as you left, the man tried a trigger word.”

“How the hell would Hydra know to find us in the middle of nowhere?” Darcy shrieked. Bucky pulled a set of enhanced handcuffs out from the larger of the two packs, and Darcy paled. She’d seen those in the footage of Steve’s elevator fight. Those were definite SHIELD/Hydra tech. “Okay.”

She turned to where the two sat tied to each other and a tree. Bucky had gagged Cody, if that was his name, but not Mel. “Already checked her for a fake tooth. She’s not saying anything.”

Darcy walked closer, and Mel opened her eyes wide. “This is all a mistake. I don’t know who he thinks we are, but he’s not safe, dear. As soon as you left, he just pulled out a knife and attacked us!”

“Rumpelstiltskin,” Bucky said. “That’s what they tried.”

“That was on the list,” Darcy agreed, her voice shaky.

“We just wanted to see if he knew the fairy tale,” Mel tried. “Truly.”

Darcy raised both her eyebrows. “What were you planning on doing if it worked?”

Mel sighed and rolled her eyes. “Get rid of you and the brat and then take him back to HQ. Who are you anyway?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Darcy said quickly. “What are we doing with them? If we leave them like this, there’s no telling when someone else might come by to free them.”

“Look, I’m just an analyst. Cody’s in the science division, R&D we are really going to his family,” Mel said, eyes wide.

“What about Hydra?” Bucky asked, taking a whetstone out of his pack to sharpen his knife.

“What about it?” she said. “Same as everything else, it went to shit two weeks ago. Your pals, the Avengers, created a monster robot that went ape-shit crazy. They thought they defeated it. Guess the robot was self-actualized enough to leave coding for his minions to put us back in the Dark Ages.”

“Age of Revolution technically,” Darcy said. “An argument could be made for early-Industrial Revolution because we still have the infrastructure necessary for electricity.” Darcy met Bucky’s eyes and snapped her mouth shut. “Anyway.”

Bucky took a step back and threw his knife into the tree directly above Mel’s head. “We’ll leave in the morning as planned. I’ll set a timed fuse that’ll burn through their ropes 24 hours after we leave.”

Mel screeched. “And what if a cougar comes? You’ll have our blood on your hands.”

Bucky shrugged. “You were going to have me kill a little boy. You’re no innocent.”

“I’ve never killed anyone!”

Darcy turned and left the clearing, sinking down by a tree. She felt cold and clammy, and when she raised her hands in front of her, they were shaking. For a while, she’d been able to forget about the rest of the world that was out there. For a while, she’d been able to think of this as just a trek across half the Eastern seaboard. Bucky came and squatted near her. “You need to be with Patrick.”

“I know that,” Darcy snapped. “I need a minute.”

“You don’t got a minute. I’m gonna have to stay on watch tonight. I need you to stay with Patrick and get some sleep.”

Darcy looked at him. “Don’t tell me what the fuck to do. ”

Bucky looked skyward for a second and then sighed. “Can you please go stay with your son?”

“In a minute,” Darcy repeated. “Bucky, I…”

Bucky looked at her, and his face went blank. “You forgot.”

“What?”

“Who I am.”

Darcy shook her head. “No. I know who you are.”

“That makes one of us then,” Bucky muttered. “Go to your kid.”

“Bucky, I…”

Darcy fell silent, and Bucky stood up. “Go to bed.”

“I forgot I wasn’t safe,” Darcy said in a rush.

Bucky just looked at her. “You forgot? Honey, you hitched your wagon to the wrong train if you wanna be safe.”

Darcy sighed. “You made me feel safe. I haven’t been safe in years, not with Jane, not after Thor. Even Steve, he didn’t see that safety didn’t mean just a locked room. So I ran, used Patrick as a reason, and tried to forget.”

“And it didn’t work,” Bucky interrupted. “You got shell shock from all you been through, the file called it undiagnosed PTSD, that’s not a surprise, but no matter how much you run or who’s with you when you do, you’re never gonna be safe, Darcy.”

Bucky fiddled with the empty sleeve on his t-shirt and took a deep breath before continuing. “Even after all this gets fixed, you think Hydra and AIM and alla them will just forget about you? You’re gonna have to choose what’s most important, hon, whether you’re gonna live in fear or you’re gonna grow up and let people, let Steve, protect you. You better do it quick before you ain’t got the choice and someone isn’t there to help. God forbid you lose Patrick in the fallout.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “I spent the last seventy years as a brainwashed assassin. Think I got the right every once in a while. What’s your excuse?”

Darcy stared at him in shock before standing and stalking off to the hut. Ruefully, Bucky rubbed his face and walked back to the clearing, sitting loosely on the ground next to a tree stump with the hut and Cody and Mel in view.

#######

Over the next several days, Darcy only spoke to Bucky when it was necessary. Bucky had tried to talk to Darcy a couple nights after they left Mel and Cody tied up. “I’m sorry. I just needed you to focus on something other than the situation, and getting mad at me seemed the easiest way.”

Darcy nodded jerkily. “I figured as much the next day.”

“We good?”

“Sure,” Darcy said.

She turned around and sank into the tent with Patrick. Bucky picked up a small block of wood he’d been carting around and sighed before pulling out his knife to whittle.

They were only a day’s walk away from Lancaster and her parents, only a bit farther than that to the rest of her extended family when Patrick woke up halfway through the night, blistering hot. He had gone to sleep on the bank of the Susquehanna River perfectly fine after a dinner of beef jerky, edible plants and his second-to-last package of fruit snacks and a bath Darcy had insisted on. “Mommy?” he said, pushing her shoulder. She didn’t respond, and he tried again. “Mommy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this, but I've been poking at it for, like, a month, and I can't figure out how to make it better. Also, sorry for not replying to comments, but work/life's been crazy the past two days.
> 
> Next chapter Saturday, wherein we find out if Steve and Sam survived. As always, [I'm on the Tumblr](timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com) in the meantime, where lately I've just been flailing over Sebastian Stan on this press tour because holy shit, man.


	7. part two: had better things to do (4/4)

“Steve, we’re on the shore. We’re safe. It’s 2015,” the voice kept repeating, but it sounded like it was coming from far away. “Steve, it’s Sam. I’m with you, but we gotta get outta here soon.”

Steve’s arms felt too heavy for him to lift right then, and he breathed in slowly. There was no pain, so it’d either been long enough for the serum to do its job, or he hadn’t been hurt. Sam was a solid presence at his back, arms latched around him, and legs on either side of his own. Sam’s left hand swept up and down his chest, catching on the wet fabric of his t-shirt, and he groaned.

“Hey, you back with me?” Sam said, clutching Steve a little closer.

“Yeah,” Steve said slowly. “What happened?”

“Plane lost power. We crashed,” Sam explained quickly. “We got out fine, but you..."

“Yeah, I don’t do too well in planes when they crash, “ Steve said ruefully. “Especially into water. Did I hurt you?”

“Nah,” Sam said, pressing his lips to the back of Steve’s neck. “You’re still heavy as hell though, ‘specially waterlogged.”

Steve grinned. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Sam countered. “You okay to get up? We need to figure out what the hell happened.”

Steve thunked his head back on Sam’s shoulder, smiling when he felt Sam kiss his cheek. “Yeah.” He slowly got up, offering a hand to Sam and pulling him up. “So.”

“So.”

“We crashed? We weren’t hit. Did...” Steve cut himself off, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his waterlogged phone, frowning when the screen didn’t flash on. “Stark said these don’t get water damage.”

Sam shrugged. “Best I can tell, there was some sort of electronic thing.”

“Like an EMP?”

“Possibly.”

Steve turned back to the water. “Your wings should be fine. You put them in the Faraday cage Stark built into all the Quinjets.”

“They should be, but the plane’s out about a mile, and it sunk pretty fast,” Sam shrugged. “I’d be fine getting out there and back, but I don’t know how deep it is.”

Steve nodded. “I’ll do it. You don’t have the breath control I do.”

Sam lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve never complained about my breath control before.”

Steve smiled before looking down at his feet. “You think Darcy...”

Sam clasped his hand on the back of Steve’s neck. “Man, I don’t know, but let’s get us out of here first.”

Steve stripped and folded his clothes into a pile, Sam looking on amused. “They’ll only weigh me down.”

“If you’re not back upside in five minutes, I’ll come in after you,” Sam warned.

“You’re not wearing a watch; how exactly do you plan to keep time?”

“I can count.”

Steve smiled and shook his head before wading into the bay. Sam started counting loudly and didn’t stop until Steve dived under the water. Then he settled for pacing back and forth between the pile of clothes and the shore, decidedly not counting. Steve appeared above the surface before too long, and he swam efficiently back to shore. Sam pulled him in and then took the wing pack from him, checking the various systems while Steve got re-dressed. “Wet clothes are gross,” Steve complained before adding, “You think it’ll still work?”

“It should,” Sam said. “Only concern I have is that whatever that EMP thing was, it’ll happen again. I won’t fly too high. Expect you to catch me this time though.”

“Anytime.”

T’Challa had built a harness into the wings when he repaired them after the Triskelion, but the weight Sam was carrying still pulled on his back; he couldn’t carry Steve more than an hour. They had enough flight time to get back to the Tower and not to the new upstate facility, but if anyone would have answers, it’d be Stark.

Without communication devices, there was too much wind to talk, so it was a very long hour before they landed on the Tower. Normally, a welcoming committee of some sort met Steve any time he visited, but he barely noticed. The destruction he’d seen as they flew up - airplanes downed and on fire, multiple vehicle crashes and no emergency services - was weighing heavily on Steve. “Soon as we figure something out here, we’re gonna go back and help.”

“Where would we start?”

“Go check on your family, Sam,” Steve answered. “I’ll liaise with Stark.”

Sam saluted and twisted off the landing pad, wings automatically unfolding. It was a thing of beauty, and Steve never tired of watching it. Sam was a speck in the sky heading for Harlem soon enough, and Steve turned to the door. They normally slid open at his approach, but Stark had built in redundant door latches that Steve pulled open. No one was in the penthouse, but that didn’t mean anything: Stark was often in his labs, and Pepper often wasn’t in house.

Steve kept waiting for JARVIS to come online before remembering JARVIS was effectively dead. “FRIDAY. You here?”

“Voice response only. Emergency procedure 17-dash-3.”

The lilting accent - although from the wrong country - never stopped reminding Steve of his mom. “Great. Well, this is Steve Rogers. Where’s Tony and Pepper?”

“Captain Rogers, you are welcome. Sir is in his lab two floors down. Miss Potts’ last known whereabouts are somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. She was flying back from meetings in London.”

“Did she get out of the plane?” Steve asked as he headed for the staircase.

“Unknown.”

Steve saved the rest of his questions for Tony and jumped the second flight down. The door was propped open so it wouldn’t pneumatically close, and Steve could see Tony working frantically on a suit. “Tony.”

“Steve, you’re alive,” Tony said absently. “Was only 90% sure you and Wings would make it out of that crash.”

“What happened?”

“Ultron left us a little parting gift. I might be proud of him if he wasn’t my psychotic son.”

“Stark.”

Tony put down his soldering gun. “Every second I spend talking to you is a second I could spend helping to see if Pepper’s alive.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“As best I can figure out - and I’m a genius, so my best is pretty damn good - he left a virus in the Internet. 12 hours after he was destroyed, it sent out a blast that mimicked an EMP. For ten seconds, anything connected to anything electric was disrupted, and most of them were destroyed. This is why I insisted on having a Faraday cage on our quinjets.”

“I can’t thank you enough for that,” Steve interrupted. “We kept Sam’s pack in it. Only way we got here as quick as we did.”

“Yes, well, as I said, genius. Unfortunately, the love of my life is currently in the Atlantic Ocean, and I need to go get her.”

Steve grabbed Tony by the arm before he went to the assembly robots. “Wait, Stark, can I use FRIDAY?”

“Yeah, knock yourself out, kid. Once I get Pepper, I’ll come upstate, and I’ll figure out a fix.”

Steve nodded. “She’s your priority. I get it.”

Stark flashed him a peace sign as his suit was formed around him. Steve wandered back upstairs, ostensibly waiting for Sam. “Hey, FRIDAY, the lower levels of the building. What are they being used for?”

“Emergency shelters, Captain. As part of our protocol, in any event where there is the potential for major loss of life, all Stark Industries employees are given transportation to family or friends to the best of our ability while the Tower is transformed into a meeting area and makeshift hospital.”

“Oh,” Steve answered, rocking back on his feet. “That’s good of Tony.”

“It was part of the elder Stark’s directive for his properties, but Sir had expanded on the plan after September 11th and then when this Tower was completed.”

Steve rummaged through the kitchen, making himself a couple sandwiches and leaving some for Sam. “I need you to start a search for me.”

“Certainly.”

Steve sat down on the couch. “Darcy and Patrick Lewis. Their pictures should be in your servers.”

“Indeed. Per Miss Potts’ instructions, there has been a search running for them for the past three days.”

“I thought Dr Foster didn’t get through to Pepper?” Steve asked, wiping mustard off the corner of his mouth.

“I am not privy to their conversations, Captain Rogers.”

Steve put his napkin down and guzzled half a glass of water. “Where were they located last?”

“They were last seen in Virginia earlier this morning in the company of Sergeant Barnes.”

He put down the glass abruptly. “What?! Why didn’t you report this to anyone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was no protocol to do so. I am programmed to relay movement in a once-a-week summary email to Miss Potts.”

FRIDAY sounded snippy, and Steve sighed. “Please relay any of that information to me as soon as you get it.”

“As you like. In what manner? Mobile call, email, text, carrier pigeon?”

Steve groaned. “Relay it to Selvig at the upstate facility.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

“Not right now. Let me know when Sam gets here.”

FRIDAY didn’t reply. Steve rued the loss of JARVIS yet again. JARVIS would have known to let Jane and Pepper know immediately and would have gotten word to him. FRIDAY hadn’t been alive long enough yet.

When Sam came back, he’d have him take ‘em up to Vermont. He took a shower and changed before dropping into a light doze.

A couple hours later, FRIDAY woke Steve up. “Airman Wilson has arrived.”

Steve sat up and walked quickly to the door where Sam was taking the rigging off. “Did everyone make it?”

Sam nodded and walked into Steve’s arms. “Yeah. Mom was watching the munchkins while my sister was at work.”

“What about Jim?”

“Jim had actually come up for an interview, so he was staying with my mom,” Sam answered. “Everyone’s okay.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me too,” Sam said, head falling onto Steve’s shoulders. “What about Tony and Miss Potts?”

“Tony’s fine. Pepper was over the ocean, and he’s gone to find her.”

Steve led Sam over to the counter where his sandwiches were still laid out, and Sam sat down at a bar stool. “You cooked?”

“For a definition of cooking, sure,” Steve said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a couple cans of Coke. “FRIDAY said Darcy, Patrick, and Bucky were spotted this morning in Virginia.”

Sam stopped eating and put his hand over Steve’s, which was fiddling with the tab on the soda can. “But that’s great, Steve. We know they’re alive!”

Steve took in a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“What are you gonna do?” Sam asked, popping open his can of Coke and taking a long draft.

“It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Steve said. “I’ll have to trust Darcy. We had a plan in place for an emergency.”

“In the meantime?”

Steve crushed his empty can and tossed it in the recycling bin. “Go upstate when you’re ready? Check out my hideaway and her parents when we can?”

“You’re not a fan of waiting.”

“I’m not,” Steve agreed, quirking his lips. “It’s killing me I can’t go find them, but I gotta be of use somewhere.”

Sam finished eating and wiped his mouth. “Hey, FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Airman?”

Sam threw his trash away and pulled Steve to the couch. “Does the upstate facility know we’re alive?”

“Yes, Airman, if they ask about you, that fact will be relayed to them.”

“Okay. Give us an update on what’s happened up there.”

“All personnel are accounted for. Emergency systems are online.”

“Is Natasha alive?”

“Yes. Most personnel were in the mess hall when systems went offline.”

Steve broke in impatiently. “Can you put us through to Natasha?”

A few seconds later, Natasha came on. “Steve, Sam, you’ve made it?”

“Yeah, we were flying when it happened,” Steve answered. “Got out. Flew to Stark’s.”

“Tony okay?”

“He’s out getting Pepper.”

“Thor’s fine. He flew over and checked on us. He asked about Darcy Lewis, Foster’s old assistant. Do you know anything?”

Steve floundered at the question, and Sam rolled his eyes, having thought of an answer hours ago. “They were seen with Barnes this morning, which is why we left. As far as we can tell, they’re okay,” Sam said. “The Barton’s?”

Natasha was quiet. “Laura refused to have an AI system put in. Thor left too quickly for me to ask him to check on them.”

Sam looked at Steve. “Man, I can either go check on them or take you upstate, but I can’t do both of them today without seriously injuring myself.”

“Take me up to the Barton’s,” Steve said.

“Natasha, do you need any support right now?” Sam asked.

“No,” she said shortly. “We’re good here. We’re going to start sending out teams this afternoon to local areas and working our way down to Manhattan.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Be careful,” Natasha admonished. “Next time, let me know when you’ve got a Barnes sighting. You know I can help.”

“Goodbye, Nat.”

Sam rolled his shoulders and stretched out his back. “Let me find the bathroom, and I’ll be good to go.”

Steve nodded and went to the refrigerator where there was a magnetic note pad. After writing a quick note to Tony and reminding FRIDAY to also let them know where he and Sam were, he went back out to the landing pad to wait for Sam.

The Barton farm looked like it was still in good shape when they landed, and Sam headed for the barn to stow his wings while Steve went straight for the house. “Clint? Laura?”

A small tow-headed child poked their head out. “Cap’n Steve?”

“Hi, honey. Are your parents here, Lila?”

“Daddy went into town,” Lila said. “Mom’s taking a nap because Nathaniel is moving too much in her belly.”

“When did Clint go into town?” Steve asked.

“This morning.”

Steve nodded. “I need to talk to your mom. Can you or Cooper get her?”

“Cooper went with Daddy,” Lila informed him, holding onto his hand as they walked up the stairs. “They were going to have boy time and lunch before coming back.”

Lila barged into her mother’s room. “Mom, we have a guest!”

“Lila, I was napping. You weren’t supposed to wake me,” Laura said, belting her robe shut as she came out the bedroom door. “Oh, Steve! What are you doing here?”

Steve looked at her for a second, confused. “Um. Didn’t you guys lose power?”

Laura waved her hand as she stumbled into the kitchen and poured a glass of sweet tea from the pitcher on the table. “Sure, yeah, happens all the time.”

Sam knocked on the front door and let himself in. “Good afternoon, Mrs Barton. We’ve not been introduced.”

“You’re the Falcon!” Lila said, eyes wide. “You’re my favorite!”

Before Steve could get too far into his explanation of just why Laura should be worried about the power outage, the front door banged open, and Clint ran in, Cooper hanging off him. “Laura, honey, are you and the kids...”

Clint hugged Laura fiercely before grabbing Lila and also hugging her. Steve tried not to feel jealous. He wasn’t successful. “Hate to barge in here like this, Clint, but...”

Clint finally noticed the two other men in the room and swallowed. “Everyone okay?”

“Pepper might be the only casualty,” Steve said quickly. “She was flying. Tony’s gone out to try to get her.”

“What about Darcy and Patrick?” Clint asked. “Are they okay? Why are you here when you should be checking up on them?”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up, and Laura smiled. “Nat still doesn’t know, don’t worry, but Clint put it together last time he did security for Jane when Thor was off-planet. Patrick looks too much like you for him not to be your kid. Figured you didn’t say anything for a reason.”

“You know, there’s no reason not to tell Natasha now,” Sam said.

“It’s a matter of pride,” Laura guessed. “See how long you can keep something from the spy.”

“I’ve gotten good at misdirection,” Steve agreed.

“What’s the story then with Patrick?” Clint asked.

Steve dropped down next to Sam on the couch. “It’s a pretty long one.”

“Well, we don’t have a TV for entertainment, Steve,” Clint said. “Might as well tell us.”

“After you tell me why you were worried about the power,” Laura said. “That seems important.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're closing in on the end. Thanks for commenting and kudos-ing and reading. Y'all are amazing. Next chapter Tuesday!
> 
> My [Tumblr](http://timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com/).


	8. part three: sit drawing up the plans (1/3)

Darcy only remembered snatches of the next few days: a cool cloth on her head; a shoulder digging into her stomach; Patrick’s warm small body pressed against hers; and the scent of her mother’s linens. It was this last scent that pulled her out of the brain fog. Her eyes blinked open and landed on Bucky in the chair across the room from where she was lying. His head was tipped against his chest, feet hooked around the chair legs, and he was fast-asleep. He’d had a haircut and shave since she’d last seen him, and his clothes were simple, homespun cotton. She couldn’t even see a weapon. If Bucky was asleep, Darcy figured she was safe, so she took stock of the rest of the room. She was in a single bed with a wooden frame and white eyelet cotton sheets. Next to her was a small table with a pitcher of water, a glass, and a basin with a couple cloths. It was oddly reminiscent of her grandparents’ old Amish farm.

Before she could move, there was a knock at the door, and Bucky jerked into wakefulness. “James, Patrick wants to see his mother,” a very familiar voice said, opening the door and letting the small boy run in. 

Darcy felt her breath leave her in a whoosh. “Mom.”

“Mommy, you’re awake!” Patrick exclaimed, climbing on to the bed. “Guess what Grandpa and I did today!”

Darcy’s mom, Elaine, helped her sit up and lean back against several pillows. “What, honey?”

“He let me ride a horse, and we went into the town to help out some people who got hurt when the power went out,” Patrick said in a rush before pausing for a breath. “And then we picked up the rest of our stuff, but someone had stolen my last package of fruit snacks.”

“You helped me make fruit snacks yesterday, Patrick,” Elaine reminded him. “You said you liked them more than the ones in the store.”

“I do like them better,” Patrick said. “I like ripping the packages open though.”

Darcy smiled and ran a hand through his hair as he snuggled closer to her. “You okay, Patrick?”

“Yeah,” he said, patting her stomach. “I missed you, Mommy. I’m glad you’re awake.”

“Me too,” she answered.

“Alright, Patrick, time for you to go find James and help him milk the cows,” Elaine interrupted.

Darcy’s eyes darted over to the corner, but the chair was empty. “Okay, Grandma,” Patrick answered, hugging Darcy again before slipping off the bed and out of the door.

Once he was gone, Elaine sat on the bed and gathered Darcy close. “What happened, Mom?”

“A couple evenings ago, your man came running in like a bat out of hell and damn near scared the wits out of your father and some of the other men,” Elaine said. “He had you slung over one shoulder and Patrick rigged up in some harness on his other side. No one could figure out how he’d gotten through all the fences without alerting anyone, but then Jacob saw his shoulder and figured out who he was.”

“How did he find you?” Darcy asked. “We were coming here, but this isn’t Nana and Papa’s farm.”

Elaine shrugged. “I don’t know, Darcy.”

Darcy stretched underneath the sheets and winced in pain when she moved her legs. She wiggled her left toes. “Mom?”

“You had an infection, honey,” she answered. “You know those Stark bone repair shots aren’t meant to be permanent fixes without a physician’s care. Hiking from Virginia to Pennsylvania didn’t help.”

Darcy lifted the sheet and looked at her leg. “Is it okay? Am I okay?”

“Your dad had it in an inflatable cast for a couple days. He should be up here soon, but I wouldn’t think he’s gonna let you walk up to Vermont anytime soon, kiddo.”

“Mom, I’ve gotta,” Darcy started to say before she saw the thin line of her mother’s lips. “Sorry.”

“We had no idea where you were, Darcy. You or Patrick,” Elaine said, holding onto Darcy’s hand tightly. “Steve and his friend Sam stopped by our house a couple days after, and that only made us more worried. We knew about James before, of course, but to learn that he’d kidnapped the two of you...”

“Steve’s okay?” Darcy interrupted. “Is he here? Does he know? Can we get in touch with him?

“They were as fine as you’d expect. Said they’d check in on us every once in a while to make sure we were okay and to see if we’d heard from you. Last time they came by was the day before you arrived here,” Elaine answered.

“Steve’s okay,” Darcy breathed out in wonder and then burst into tears.

Turning into her mother’s stomach and wrapping her arms around her torso, Darcy broke down. Elaine murmured to her and stroked her hair out of her face and down her back. Several minutes later, Darcy pulled back, wiping at her face ineffectually. “Sorry, Mom.”

“I think you’ve been holding that in for a little while,” she answered, smiling and getting up from the bed to dampen the cloth on the table and hand it to Darcy.

Darcy half-laughed and took the cloth, wiping snot and tears from her face before putting the cloth in the basin and snuggling back up to her mother. “Just a little. Are we safe here?”

Elaine nodded. “After everything happened, your dad and I did what we could to help out people near where we lived and then came out here to your cousin’s place. Your father goes back every day to check up on people and help where he can, brings food and news, helps dig graves.”

“Bet Fort and Constance aren’t too happy about that,” Darcy said. “Or about Patrick and I being here. We’re not exactly Amish.”

“They’ve helped out too. They’ve let James stay here, knowing who he is, and are providing food to townsfolk. This, this whatever it is, has shook up everyone,” Elaine answered. “Now, what’s happened to you?”

Darcy picked at the sheets. “Someone at Patrick’s school was working for Hydra or at least paid off by Hydra and realized who Patrick’s dad is. Bucky took us, but whatever’s left of Hydra hadn’t realized he was partially under his own control, so he didn’t take us to their extraction point or kill us, and then when the EMP thing hit, it knocked out the rest of the programming,” she paused and looked her mother in the eyes. “He’s got neural implants that were working through the arm. Took the arm off, started walking here, and then...”

Darcy shrugged and trailed off, and her mother scoffed. “Think there’s a little more to the story than ‘started walking here.’ Your son seems awfully attached to a man who barely knows who he is.”

“He’s been doing okay,” Darcy objected. “How would you be if you’d been forcibly controlled and brainwashed...”

Elaine interrupted her. “As I said, more to the story.” Darcy huffed and flounced back against the pillows, and Elaine smiled. “You’re still my daughter, no matter that you’re an adult and have a child of your own. Patrick said you two had a fight and weren’t talking.”

“He did?”

“In not so many words.”

Darcy shrugged. “I called him an asshole.”

“And?”

“And then I didn’t talk to him until just now. I wasn’t mad at him, not really; I mean, I was more mad at me. We almost got jumped by a couple Hydra agents, paper pushers, and I just couldn’t handle it,” Darcy said. “It was too easy to get caught up in the little family unit and focus on Patrick, you know?”

Now that Darcy was in a place where she could talk, it all just poured out. “I was burying everything that had happened, but I guess I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I wanted to do it all on my own, make sure I was safe by myself.”

“That’s why you went to Baltimore,” Elaine said.

“Yeah, and that didn’t work, and then this… it was a stark reminder that I can’t keep myself safe, can’t keep Patrick safe, and he fed into it because he needed me out of the line of fire. It was just easier to be mad at him than to…”

“Be an adult?”

“He told me Hydra’s file said I had undiagnosed PTSD.”

Elaine snorted. “That’s not brand-new information.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Darcy, you are one of the strongest women I’ve met. You’ve handled more than I think most could, and you’re tough. James told me about the girl and dog in the car, and so for you and Patrick to come here unscathed is a miracle. But everything you’ve been through with Jane and Steve and now this, honey, it’s okay to need help.”

Patrick raced back into the room then, and Darcy eagerly took the distraction. “Patrick James. No running inside.”

“Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Grandma,” Patrick said, bouncing on his toes. “Dinner’s ready though, and Grandpa said you could come if you were careful and used the crutches. You gotta hurry, or Uncle Bucky will eat all the biscuits, and I want a biscuit with honey, Mommy!”

Darcy smiled and ruffled his hair. “Well, lead on. I could use a biscuit with honey too.”

#######

Dinner with the family was more subdued than Darcy was used to being normal for her family. Fort, her cousin, and her father, Jacob, talked quietly with her mother about a problem a neighbor was having, and Constance, her cousin’s wife, helped Patrick eat his dinner. Bucky sat on the far side of the table, with his back to the wall, and only moved when Patrick asked him for help or to hand him a condiment. Darcy was too tired from the short walk across the ground floor to the kitchen to be of much cheer herself. As much as the filling, home-cooked meal nourished her, just the act of eating was exhausting, and she felt herself drooping. Bucky noticed before her father and gruffly said, “Darcy, you’re going to fall asleep.”

Darcy thought about arguing, but it would take too much energy. “Help me back to bed?” Constance sniffed in the background, and Darcy rolled her eyes. “Not asking him to take me to bed, Con.”

“There are children present,” Fort said, though whether he was cautioning them against fighting or against alluding to sex wasn’t clear.

Bucky was at her side by then, and instead of helping her with the crutches, he picked her up. “If I felt more up to it, I’d be seriously annoyed by this,” Darcy said.

“I know,” Bucky said softly. “Let me do this for you.”

He carried her into the room and gently sat her down on her bed. “We should probably talk at some point,” Darcy mumbled, already sinking into the feather bed.

“We will” was his reply before he slipped out of the room.

She figured she’d imagined it the next morning when she woke up until Patrick greeted her by jumping on the right side of the bed. “Mommy, Uncle Bucky left,” he announced sadly, holding his teddy bear close.

Elaine was following close behind with a breakfast tray. Darcy wrinkled her nose when she saw the oatmeal but dutifully started eating, knowing her mother wouldn’t answer any questions until she ate. Darcy placed the spoon back in the bowl when she was finished, cuddled Patrick close, and looked at her mother. “He’s been sleeping out in the barn with the rest of the boys; we’ve got all the animals together for protection. When we rang for breakfast this morning, he was gone, and Silas said he’d never come to bunk down.”

“Grandpa said no one saw him after he helped you here, Mommy,” Patrick added. “Then Aunt Constance saw me there and shushed Grandpa.”

Darcy smiled and patted Patrick’s back. “Sometimes grownups have to talk about things that aren’t meant for kids’ ears.”

“I know that,” Patrick replied, rolling his eyes. “She don’t have to be mean though.”

Darcy and Elaine shared a look, and Elaine raised her eyebrows as if to say, ‘he’s your kid.’ “Did he leave a note or anything, Mom?” Darcy asked.

“No. I’d wager he’s going to meet up with your Steve though.”

“Is Daddy okay?” Patrick interrupted.

“Yep,” Darcy answered. “Grandma said she saw him the day before Uncle Bucky brought us here.”

“Mommy, I know; he left me a drawing. That was a long time ago though,” Patrick stated. “I wanna see him. We were gonna finish _Mr Popper’s Penguins_ next time I got to talk to him. Is he okay _now_ , I mean?”

“I don’t know, Patrick,” Darcy said. “He’s with Uncle Sam though, and he and Uncle Sam help keep each other safe.”

Patrick wriggled his way out of Darcy’s hold and bounced on the floor. “Uncle Fort said some of his cousins would help me learn how to grow food today, so I gotta go meet him.”

“Alright, you have fun,” Darcy said.

Patrick jumped forward and gave her another hug before walking very quickly out of the room. “He reminds me more and more of you every time I see him,” Elaine said. “Though he’s a lot more stubborn.”

“That’s Steve in him,” Darcy said.

They sat in silence for a minute. “You don’t think he’s going to meet up with Steve, do you?” Elaine asked.

“No,” Darcy quickly answered. “That’s one of the things we fought about. He wanted to leave Patrick and I here from day one, and then I think he was just going to disappear. When I said Steve and I had emergency plans, he was mad. I thought at first it was because I was willing to trust Steve over him, but I don’t know. I don’t think he’s ready to see Steve. His clearest memories are from before the war.”

“You said there was a neural interface in that arm?” Elaine prompted.

Darcy shrugged. “After the arm shorted out, he had all his memories back. I think it’s been hard for him to understand them. He couldn’t reconcile Steve pre-serum with Captain America back in the 40s or in DC last year.”

“Did Patrick hurt or help that?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Patrick’s a lot healthier than Steve ever was as a kid, so Bucky never mistook the two.” Darcy leaned back against the pillows and changed the subject. “Is there a bath in this place? I feel gross.”

Elaine squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll heat you some water, Darcy.”

#######

Darcy woke the next afternoon to a breeze fluttering the curtains. Considering she had watched her mother close the windows, Darcy figured there’d only be one culprit. “You have everyone worried, you know,” she said.

Bucky shrugged his shoulder, the plate reflecting the afternoon sunlight. “Had to get away. Knew you and Patrick were safe. Had to figure things out.”

“And?” she asked, shifting to sit up on the bed. “Are you coming with us to Vermont?”

Bucky rubbed his palms on his jeans. “Up to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said. “I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I think everything just caught up to me, but I know better.”

“Easy to take things out on me. I’m just the assassin,” Bucky smiled ruefully.

“No, you’re more than that. You’re…”

Bucky interrupted. “I was scared to death when you wouldn’t wake up, but that kid looked up at me, sure that I would save you.”

Bucky leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee. “I got all these memories of my life whirlin’ around in my head and then ghost-like wisps of visions of what I did when I wasn’t myself. I need to figure out who I am.

“But right now, I need to make sure you’re gonna be okay, you and Patrick. For Steve but for the man I used to be once.”

Darcy was about to interrupt, but Bucky shook his head. “You can go to Vermont or stay here. I can take you where you want and go join up with Steve if that’s what you want, or I can just leave. I need you to be honest with me.”

“I don’t want you to leave us,” Darcy said. “Come to Vermont, and wait with us for Steve.”

Bucky looked at her, his eyes sincere. “I can’t promise you that it’ll be safe.”

Darcy sighed deeply. “I know. I guess I’m coming to terms with the fact I’m not going to be.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, and Darcy shrugged. “I treated you badly because I didn’t want to deal with the fact I’m a mess. You weren’t wrong. I just don’t like to think I need help.”

“Ain’t anything wrong with needin’ help.”

“No,” Darcy agreed. “Easy for me to say that to other people, not so easy for me to take my own advice. I got Steve to talk to someone, and that helped him.”

“His fella?” Bucky asked.

Darcy shook her head. “Nah, a therapist can’t be your friend; there has to be boundaries,” she said. “Look, we’ll get to Steve, and then we can figure the rest out. Deal?”

Bucky dragged the chair over next to the bed and grabbed her hand, shaking it. “Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, few things: one, sorry I'm a bit late- work, life, had to iron clothes and knew if I turned on my laptop, I wouldn't, etc; two, yes, the chapter count has gone down; three, however, this is because my last Steve chapter screwed with the flow too much, so instead I'm going to add it as an outtake after the main story is done- hence, making it a series; four, Darcy's background in this work is the same as in [Hot Chocolate](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3444104), although I've not yet decided if that's in this 'verse.
> 
> Next chapter Thursday. On the [Tumblr](http://timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com) in the meantime where lately I've been ranting about work.


	9. part three: sit drawing up the plans (2/3)

It was another week until Darcy’s father gave her the okay to leave. “Darcy, hon, you never know when Steve might stop by. He could be here tomorrow,” Elaine implored even as she helped Darcy pack.

“Yes, or it could be two weeks, Mom. I need to follow our plan, okay?” Darcy said, trying to keep the annoyed note out of her voice.

Patrick broke in, staving off the fight. “Grandma, I can’t find my teddy bear.”

“Did you check under the bed?”

“Yep,” Patrick said quickly before inching to the door. “Maybe I left it in the barn.”

Darcy sighed. “Patrick, we don’t have time for you to go say goodbye to the horses again.”

“They’ll miss me!” he protested.

“Mm hmm,” Elaine said, smoothing Patrick’s hair out of his face. “You can always come back and visit them.”

“Mommy, I wanna come back and visit the horses all the time.”

“Let’s go see Daddy first, okay?”

Patrick sighed heavily and slumped on the bed. “I love Daddy and want to see him, but I want to pet the horses too.”

A teddy bear arced through the air and hit Patrick in the chest. “I found this hiding underneath Patience’s trough. You know anything about that, Patrick?” Bucky said. Patrick shook his head, eyes wide, the picture of innocence, and Bucky stepped into the room. “Ready to go when you are.”

Darcy lifted up the saddlebags. “Got everything here. C’mon, Patrick, give Grandma a hug, and let’s go.”

Patrick clung to Elaine’s legs for a minute before running out of the room. Bucky followed after grabbing the bags, and Darcy and Elaine looked at each other. “I wish you would stay,” Elaine tried again.

“Mom.”

“I know you have to go,” she replied, rubbing her eyes. “It was just a miracle to get you back after weeks of not knowing.”

Darcy hugged her hard. “As soon as I can, I’ll have someone let you know we made it back safe. I’ll get you news on what’s going on. Stark has to be working on fixing it.”

“I love you. Be safe.”

She nodded and kissed her mother on the cheek before leaving the room. Fort and Constance were in the kitchen, and both gave her a hug before she stepped outside and up to the old Harley WLA. Her dad was looking over the rigging attaching the sidecar to the main body while Patrick helped Bucky strap on the last of their supplies. “You ready for this, sugar?” Jacob asked. “It’s a long trip.”

Darcy rolled her shoulders. “Sure, Dad. Be just like old times.”

“Old times meant you were in the sidecar,” he said, pulling her into a hug. “Good thing our hobby was restoring WW II-era motorcyles, eh? Be safe, Darcy. I love you.” He kissed her forehead and then squatted down in time to catch Patrick before the boy rammed into them. “You listen to your mom and dad, squirt.”

“And Uncle Bucky?”

“And your uncle,” Jacob agreed. “Love you, kid.”

“I love you too, Grandpa.”

Patrick scrambled away and sat in the sidecar, playing with the retro-fit seatbelts. Bucky and Jacob sized each other up, and Jacob offered his hand. “You take care of those two.”

“I plan on it, sir,” Bucky said stiffly.

“Take care of yourself too,” Jacob added. “Come back anytime.”

Darcy waited until Bucky had wedged himself in with Patrick and belted them both before starting up the motorcycle. She started out a little bumpy and forgot to keep compensating for the weight of the sidecar, especially when Patrick hung halfway out waving to people and cows and horses, but by the time they got to the main road, she had a handle on the driving, even though they were still going pretty slow. “Steve know you can ride a bike?” Bucky yelled.

Darcy laughed. “We used to go riding together before Patrick.”

#######

While there wasn’t anyone else driving on the roads, they had to carefully dodge stranded cars and trucks. Darcy had plotted out a route that would hopefully avoid most of the mess and large highways like I-91 that would be impassable, but it’d take two long days of driving instead of the eight or nine hours it normally would. They stopped for the night on the Hudson, a bit south of Albany. Patrick was already asleep, his skin chilled from the constant wind in spite of the heavy blanket tucked around him, and Darcy shook him awake so they could eat dinner before setting up a tent. “Don’t wanna,” Patrick said, pushing her hand away. “Tired.”

“Need to, baby,” she answered. “Don’t you want to see what Constance packed us for dinner?”

“It’s cake,” he mumbled. “I watched. Sleep, Mommy.”

Darcy tugged him grumbling to where Bucky had set out their food. “Food first.”

Patrick huffed and sat down heavily, leaning against Darcy when she sat cross-legged. “I want eggs, Mommy.”

“We’ve got chicken and bread and some lemonade and... chocolate cake, it looks like,” Darcy answered. “Boiled eggs in the morning.” Patrick wrinkled his nose and opened his mouth to complain, but Darcy tapped his leg. “Patrick.”

“Okay, Mommy,” he answered, taking the plate from Bucky.

Bucky wolfed down his food and went to secure the motorcycle, disconnecting chains so it couldn’t be rolled off. Patrick was playing in the water while Darcy rinsed off the cutlery they’d used when he came back down the hill to wash the grease off his hand in the sand and water. “It’ll get dark soon. Did you want a fire?”

Darcy shook her head. “No, it’s warm enough without it. I’ll set up the rest of our camp if you watch the kid.”

Bucky nodded. “Sure.”

The next morning, they were up with the birds and ate breakfast quickly, wanting to get on the road. “Looking forward to seeing Steve?” Bucky asked casually when they were re-packing the motorcycle.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Darcy replied. “Knowing he was okay a couple weeks ago won’t mean as much as actually seeing he’s okay. What about you?”

Bucky cinched the rope tight and then swung Patrick up under his arm. “I don’t know. Guess we’ll see.”

The three were making decent time when they swung over onto 22A and up through Vermont, following the line of the Hudson as it opened into Lake Champlain. They had nearly reached St Albans and their turn off when Bucky yelled at Darcy to stop and pull over. “What’s up?” Darcy asked, pulling her helmet off.

“There haven’t been any stranded cars on the road the past couple miles,” he answered. “Feels off.”

Darcy nodded. “Plan B?”

In answer, Bucky grabbed his pack from where it’d been tied down, put it on, and pulled a gun from the hold in the sidecar, stowing it in the holster he’d fixed up. “Drive casual,” he ordered. “Patrick, you be quiet.”

Patrick nodded, fingers in his mouth as he watched Bucky lope off into the fields surrounding the road. “Alright, Patrick, hold on tight, okay?” Darcy said as she turned the bike back on.

About five miles down the road, Bucky’s feelings proved true as a blockade stretched across the road. Darcy slowed down as they approached; it looked like someone had torn up the concrete barriers used on bridges and mountainsides. Going through the blockade would only cause them to crash. There was an opening in the middle made from a metal mesh, and she couldn’t see it clearly enough, but it looked like there were metal studs in the mesh. As she got closer, a stick-thin body stood up, with a shotgun haphazardly placed over their shoulder. There was no way around it, so she stopped. “Hello, just looking to get to my family,” Darcy said.

“Where ya headed?” the lanky teenager asked.

“Outside St Albans.”

The teenager didn’t respond, just walked closer, her hands firm on the gun. “You got a kid with you?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said, suppressing her eye-roll. “You clean up the road?”

“My people did,” she answered. “You wanna get through; you gotta pay the toll.”

The teenager had reached the motorcycle by then, and Darcy’s hand stayed steady on the gun hidden by the bike’s visor. “What’s the toll?”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“Dangerous for a woman and a child to be by themselves.”

“I can handle myself,” Darcy said. “Besides, you’re a woman yourself.”

The teenager sneered and pushed her dirty hair back from her face. “That s’posed to make me more sympathetic to you?”

“I’m Darcy. This is Patrick. What’s your toll?”

“Name’s Nelly. You got food?”

“Yeah, sure,” Darcy answered. “We set out yesterday with enough food for a couple days, and we made good enough time that we won’t need the rest of it. Got cake even.”

Nelly’s eyes lit up, and she placed her shotgun on the ground and walked slowly around the motorcycle to where their bags were tied, hands loose at her side. “If you got food and soap, you can pass.”

Five minutes later, Darcy and Patrick were back on their way, less the rest of their food - except for the fruit snacks Bucky and Patrick had hidden in the sidecar - and soap. Darcy watched the odometer carefully and pulled off when they’d driven five miles past the blockade. They both peed, and Darcy re-organized the bags on the back of the motorcycle. Patrick had climbed back into the sidecar and was holding onto his teddy bear tightly. Darcy squeezed in next to him, and he immediately snuggled up to her. “Is Uncle Bucky coming back?”

Her heart broke at his soft voice. “Yes, Patrick. Bucky’s like Daddy, remember? He can run super-fast when he’s by himself, so he’ll catch up.”

She felt him nod against her body and was surprised when he clambered into her lap, hugging her and burying his face in her chest. “I wanna go home, and I wanna see Daddy, and I miss school and Miss Shelley and Alex and Margo.”

“I know, baby,” she said, running a hand through his hair and down his shaking back. “I know this sucks. I want to go home too. I want to see Steve and make sure he’s okay.”

“Will I ever get to go home again?” he asked, voice muffled.

“I don’t know.”

#######

Bucky, Darcy, and Patrick pulled up to the hidden cabin in late afternoon. Darcy suspected there were multiple traps Steve’s explicit driving directions she'd memorized had had them bypass - he and, by proxy, Patrick were great fans of _Swiss Family Robinson_ and _The Three Investigators_ \- but all was clear when she turned into the small parking area and turned off the motorcycle. “Let me clear it first,” Bucky said, unbuckling himself and swinging out of the sidecar, landing lightly on his feet.

“You did catch those pits we avoided, right?” Darcy asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, punk always did like those sort of things,” Bucky volunteered. “Doesn’t mean someone couldn’t get past them.”

Darcy shrugged. “The door is hooked to a biometric system.”

“Which would have been destroyed.”

“No, not the way Steve had it built,” Darcy said. “He bet Tony a couple months ago that he couldn’t come up with a system that would withstand anything, even an EMP, and Tony took it as an affront on his ability to mechanic or something.”

“Howard’s kid.”

“Yeah. I didn’t really listen to all the technical specifications when Steve told me about it, but I know it’ll still work,” Darcy said, unbuckling Patrick and lifting him out. “If only Tony had been able to mass-produce it, right?”

Bucky walked towards the porch and placed a foot carefully on the first step. He would maintain thereafter he hadn’t shrieked when his foot went through the step and he pitched headfirst through the stairs. Darcy ran over, Patrick following close behind, and started cackling when Bucky emerged from the broken steps, shaking his foot to clear it of rotting wood. Bucky hit her with a glare, but it didn’t stop the giggles, and he eventually gave in, ignored her, and boosted Patrick up onto the porch. “Alright, alright, get it out now.”

“Master assassin. Taken in by a set of stairs.”

“Yeah, yeah. Patrick, step carefully there.”

The little boy cautiously made his way across the porch with no incident and waited at the door. “Mommy, can I open the door?”

“Wait for me, Patrick; there’s a keypad up there.”

Darcy sidestepped the destroyed stairs and climbed up the set that had been painted to disappear into the woodwork of the porch. She entered the key code, pressed her thumb to a screen, waited for the light to turn green, and, with a turn of the handle, stepped inside the cabin.

Patrick ran inside. “Daddy? Daddy, are you here?” Dim lighting came on when Darcy and Bucky stepped inside, and they could faintly hear Patrick racing through the ground floor, opening and slamming doors. “Mommy, there’s no one here. Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s probably out with Uncle Sam or the other Avengers,” Darcy answered. “Let’s check out the kitchen.”

If she knew Steve at all, he’d have left them something in the kitchen, and sure enough, on the kitchen island, there was a note held down by Patrick’s kid-sized replica Captain America shield. Darcy struggled to read it through her sudden tears, but Patrick tugging her shirt had her bolster up. “Is Daddy gonna be here soon?”

“Says he’ll check every Saturday to see if we’re here,” Darcy whispered. “Thank God.”

“What day is it?” Patrick asked.

“Saturday,” Bucky answered. His face went pale. “I’m going to go take a walk, make sure we’re safe.”

Darcy watched Bucky disappear out the front door. “I hope he’s smart enough to not actually wander off.”

“Mommy, Daddy got my shield. That means he went to our house! Do you think he got the rest of our stuff?”

“I don’t know, Patrick,” she said, pulling him into the living room. “Probably not.” Patrick jumped up on the couch, playing with his bear and shield. “Hey, baby?”

“Yeah, Mommy?”

“I need you to stay inside, alright? I’m going to go talk to Uncle Bucky.”

“Okay. Will Daddy be here soon?”

“Hopefully.”

Darcy spotted Bucky as soon as she stepped outside. He was leaning against the bike and looking out at what was visible of the lake. “Didn’t want to wander too far and end up in a pit.”

Darcy leaned up next to him. “You okay?”

“Guess I didn’t think Steve’d be here this soon. Not sure I’m ready, but I guess I don’t have a choice.”

“Sure you got a choice,” Darcy answered. “Wanna go for a walk?”

“Patrick?”

Darcy smiled. “No one else can get in that house unless they’re with Steve or Sam. He’ll be okay for a little bit. Besides, we’re not going far.”

Darcy pulled Bucky behind her, fully aware that he was allowing her to move him. They stayed within eye- and ear-shot of the house and sat down a tree stump by a cliff that went down to the lake. Bucky looked down the cliff at the water and opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was lost when the trees started whistling and leaves flew around the clearing behind them. Before Darcy could get a word out, Bucky had swung her down the cliff face and into a small opening, and then swung himself down and on top of her. Darcy started to say something, but Bucky shushed her, putting his finger on her lips. She rolled her eyes and licked his finger. Bucky’s nose wrinkled, and he wiped his hand on her t-shirt. “Gross.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I don’t have cooties.”

“No,” he agreed. “No, you don’t.”

The air grew tense around them, and Bucky shifted his weight off of her. “Shouldn’t have left the kid alone.”

Darcy shook her head and was about to speak when they heard heavy footsteps crash through the underbrush. “Mr Lewis? You here? Darcy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go, and I'll post it Saturday!
> 
> (aside: I had a dream that featured that cliff scene, which is what made me write the fic in the first place. it ended up not looking anything like my dream.)


	10. part three: hard to use my feet (3/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, so I lied? Here, have Steve. This goes back in time a few weeks.

“Thanks for the directions. If something happens down here, we’ll come up to Vermont.” Jacob Lewis clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You stay safe now, son, you hear?”

Steve nodded and forced a smile. “Sure.”

“Darcy’s tough,” Jacob added. “You know that. She’ll keep herself and Patrick alive.”

“I know she’ll do her best,” Steve agreed, looking out at the field where Sam was taking up some of the younger local kids for short rides.

“Did she ever tell you about the time she punched out the neighbor because he snapped her bra?” Jacob asked. “Or the time she reamed out one of the high school boys over whether or not she belonged in shop class?”

“And she tased Thor,” Steve said. “I know she’s tough, Mr Lewis. That’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know where Bucky’s mind is. What if he threatens them? What if he left them? Patrick’s so little. How could he handle walking up here? And there’s wildlife and rioters and...”

Jacob interrupted. “If Bucky hadn’t hurt them in the couple days he had the chance before the power went, why would he after then? If he hadn’t let them go already, why would he leave them?”

Steve lifted one shoulder in a shrug and turned back to the makeshift parking area where the motorcycle Darcy had worked on as a teenager sat. “I don’t know.” He smiled ruefully. “She’d tell me not to borrow worry.”

“And she’s right,” Jacob pulled Steve into a hug briefly before pushing him over to where Sam had landed. “Now, you’ve got to get back to your people, son. Check in on us when you can. Let us know if you find them.”

“Thanks, Mr Lewis.”

“How many times do I have to tell you it’s Jacob,” the man muttered as he walked off.

Steve smiled and walked over to Sam. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah, all the rugrats got a ride,” Sam answered, grinning when the kids around him let out shrieks of indignation. “Okay, okay, you’re not rugrats, but who’s your favorite Avenger?”

“Black Widow,” one little girl answered sullenly. “You gave me the shortest ride.”

“Next time we come, you get first dibs, okay?” Sam said, strapping Steve to his chest and pulling on his flight goggles.

Steve snickered when they were up in the air. “You gotta bribe the kids to like you?”

“Man, I knew I shouldn’t have let Tony put workable comms back in the flight rig. I knew you’d just use ‘em to sass me,” Sam complained. “Those kids like me better than you any day. What can you do, throw them really far, carry all of them at once? Doesn’t beat actually flying.”

“They borrowed the shield as a sled this past winter when we came up after Christmas,” Steve offered. “Can you beat that?”

“I will find a way,” Sam promised darkly. “Okay, quiet. It’s getting dark, and I need to concentrate.”

Steve spent the rest of the flight trying to make a plan and prioritize the work they had to do in the next couple days and not think about whether the rest of his small family was alive and safe. He was only mildly successful and definitely not ready to face Natasha or Tony when they arrived back at the upstate base. “Have a nice springtime jaunt?” Tony asked the second they landed.

“Sure,” Steve replied. “You and Pepper finish consulting with Reed?”

As expected, Tony’s face screwed up in displeasure. “Yeah. And Pym. God, no wonder why Howard never liked him.”

“The President is ready to meet with delegates from the EU as soon as we get that set up,” Steve said. “He’s not very happy with us though.”

“You’re not very diplomatic, Steve,” Sam said, finishing taking off his flight rig and storing it.

Natasha snorted, and Steve frowned at her. “I’m a better soldier.”

“Well, we’ll have something for you to fight soon,” Natasha offered. “We received reports earlier from Manhattan about Dr Doom trying to make inroads back into the US. Latveria must be doing fine if he’s willing to leave it.”

“Doom is the Four’s responsibility,” Sam said.

Natasha started walking back to the main living area. “Reed, Sue, and Johnny are helping Tony. Ben has been helping out in reconstruction.”

“Alright, keep me informed,” Steve answered and nodded to Tony and Natasha before heading off to where he knew Dr Foster would be working.

Jane looked up when Steve slid through the doors into her lab, and her face fell at his expression. “No word then?”

“No,” Steve replied. “I’m sorry, Jane.”

Jane fiddled with a pencil. “It’s not your fault. I just wish she’d have listened to us and moved closer.”

Steve sat down heavily on the old, sagging couch along the wall, moving a coffee mug out of the way so he could put his feet on the table. “It’s a moot point now.”

Jane smiled sadly. “Yeah. If only…”

She trailed off and picked up her pen. “You mind if I stay here a while?” Steve asked.

“No,” Jane answered. “You’re welcome any time.”

Steve watched her working for a while, making repairs to an instrument and taking notes, before nodding off. When he woke up, the lab was silent, and he’d been covered with a blanket. There was a buzzing under his skin, and a couple months ago, he’d have gone to burn it off by destroying some punching bags, but he only had a couple left and no way to get more. He’d go running, but the base had a strict policy on leaving the building at night, and he’d already had one too many lectures on setting a good example.

Sighing, Steve ran a hand through his hair and shuffled down to his room. Sam was asleep, hand resting where Steve would normally sleep; the sheet had fallen to his waist, and Steve took a minute to just appreciate the play of light on Sam’s dark skin, the way it contrasted with the white sheet. For the first time in a long time, the buzzing under his skin led to itching in his fingers. It took a couple minutes for him to find and then dig through the box of stuff he’d brought from his DC apartment, but he found the sketchpad and charcoal pencils Darcy bought him years ago and sat down on the chair nearest the lamp Sam had left on for him.

The sun was peaking through the small porthole window when Steve put the sketchpad down and wiped his hands clean. He tugged his shirt off, stepped out of his jeans, and slipped into bed, snuggling into Sam’s sleeping form.

When Steve woke up a couple hours later, he felt rejuvenated. The shower was running, and he guessed Sam had woken up and already gone running. Steve sat up and stretched, reaching for the jogging pants that were on the floor. The shower shut off, and Sam walked out in a towel. “Hey, morning, sleepyhead.”

Steve smiled. “Morning. Good run? You know, since I wasn’t there to keep you on pace.”

Sam rolled his eyes and went to the dresser to pull out clothes for the day. “I moved your sketchpad to the desk. Wasn’t sure if closing it would mess with the drawing though.”

Steve pulled on his t-shirt from yesterday before lacing up his sneakers. “Thanks. Save me some breakfast. I’m going to go run before I need to get going today.”

“Hey, wait,” Sam reached out and grabbed Steve’s arm. “C’mere, you big lug.”

Steve hugged Sam tight. “G’morning.”

“Love you,” Sam said and kissed Steve. “I’ll be back late, working with Wanda and Vision.”

“Be safe,” Steve requested. “You’re not unbreakable.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “You’re not either.”

“I know. You know what I remembered last night?”

“What?” Sam asked, pausing before he opened the door.

“Buck and I were kids when the Appalachian Trail opened. He was fascinated with it for a couple years and made it a point to meet those Boy Scouts that did a thru-hike back in ’36 even though they were from the Bronx.”

“You think that’s what they’re on?”

Steve shrugged. “Makes sense. It runs through Virginia, and if Darce’s following our plan, she’d have to head north. It’d be safer than going up I-81.”

“Huh. Well, we can take a gander Saturday afternoon, but it’ll be hard to see them through the trees, and I can’t take the wings through the Trail itself.”

“Yeah. I’ll figure out something.”

With light in his eyes and determination set in his shoulders now that he had an idea and could physically do something to try to get the rest of his family back, Steve set out to make a workable plan. After his run, he pulled out maps of the Eastern Seaboard from the base library and took them to the mess hall to eat breakfast. He was drinking a second cup of coffee when Maria Hill blew into the room. “Captain! Situation out on the West Coast. Wildfire out of control. Need you to suit up.”

By the time the massive fire was under control, Doom had started his attack of Manhattan, and Steve remained in crisis mode. It took a couple weeks of fighting and talking for a coalition of EU countries and the US to convince Doom to slink back to Latveria. There was barely enough time for Steve to fall into the shower before he realized they had reached another Saturday, and it was time to check on his safe house.

While Sam piloted, Steve fell asleep in the copilot’s chair and didn’t stir until Sam flipped the cloaked quinjet’s engines and slowly made a vertical descent into the front yard. Steve rubbed his eyes and stretched out his back, and then his eyes landed on the motorcycle. He gasped and hit Sam’s shoulder repeatedly in excitement. “That’s Mr Lewis’ motorcycle. That’s the one Darcy worked on. They’re here.”

Sam finished landing in the front yard, and Steve was off like a shot, running to the restored World War II motorcycle and sidecar sitting off to the side and then into the brush. “Mr Lewis? You here? Darcy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving it as a series, partially because I don't feel like figuring out how to delete it and partially because then y'all can subscribe to that in the event I add anything to this 'verse.
> 
> Epilogue tomorrow! In the meantime, I'm [on Tumblr](http://timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com) whilst checking my credit score and hoping I win the lottery. Or that RDJ contest.


	11. part four: every time i dream (1/1)

“I can’t think of a time I’ve ever been happier.”

“The world has gone to shit, and you’re happy?”

Steve cuddled a sleeping Patrick closer to his body, flopped his feet into Sam’s lap, and looked at Bucky. “I got my kid, my fella, my best friend, and my girl all back safe, sound, and together.”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that, but what about the rest of everything?” Darcy asked from the loveseat where she was sitting with Bucky across from Steve, Patrick and Sam.

Sam grinned. “Well, while some people were off gallivanting and having a nice hiking trip...” Bucky balled up his napkin and threw it at Sam. “Nah, but after Stark got Pepper back, he started working on a solution.”

“He’s not the only futurist out there, no matter what he’d have you believe,” Steve continued. “It’ll take months, if not a year or two, because of hardware replacement, but they’re going to get things back up and running.”

“And the people that starve in the meantime?” Darcy asked. “People aren’t equipped to feed themselves anymore without a grocery store.”

“National Guard is working with each individual state and their departments of health.”

“What about the poor people like us, Steve? Like we were before?” Bucky asked.

“We’re trying,” Sam answered. “Some of us have learned that we’re only human.”

Darcy breathed in deeply and looked at Patrick and Steve. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

Steve gave her a lopsided smile. “You were right. I was trying to fit you into a box. Everything was spiraling for me, and I wanted you to be my piece of normal.”

“I can’t be,” Darcy said. “But I’ve learned recently that hiding didn’t really keep me safe.”

“Sorry,” Bucky said softly.

“Not your fault,” she answered quickly. “If it was Rumlow, we’d have been dead before we left the school parking lot.”

Patrick stirred then, breaking the contemplative silence. His hands patted Steve’s cheeks, and before he even opened his eyes, he was grinning. “Daddy, you weren’t a dream!”

Patrick turned and jump-hugged Steve. Steve sat up, moved Patrick’s knee so it wasn’t digging into sensitive body parts, and hugged him back. “I think you’re the dream, kid.”

“Ugh, don’t be mushy,” Sam drawled.

“Uncle Sam, you didn’t leave!”

Patrick flew across the couch, grabbing Sam’s neck in a hug, and Steve smiled. “At some point, we should talk about getting back to the new base in that Quinjet out there.”

“The one you wouldn’t let me tell you was safe because obviously I wouldn’t know what they sound like, so instead I get thrown down a cliff,” Darcy griped quietly to Bucky.

Sam put Patrick on the floor, patting his butt before the child ran off towards his bedroom. “At some point, we should probably tell Natasha why we keep sneaking off on Saturdays.”

“I think she thinks it’s my way of courtin’ you,” Steve smirked. “I haven’t been inclined to disabuse her of that notion. She'll figure it out as soon as she sees Patrick.”

“My ma woulda tanned your hide if you were disappearing with a person for a day to court them,” Bucky said. “So would’ve Aunt Sarah.”

Steve scoffed. “Like they wouldn’t’ve had somethin’ to say about you spending weeks hiking with a woman and not even meeting her folks first?”

“Aunt Sarah would have said Darcy is far more respectable than either the likes of us.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Steve said, smiling.

“Would she have liked me?” Darcy asked, curious.

“Yeah,” Bucky said as Steve nodded. “Mighta been a bit sad you got pregnant without bein’ married, but that’d be more for Patrick’s sake. She knew having a piece of paper didn’t mean much.”

“She’d be more mad I got you pregnant than mad you got pregnant,” Steve continued.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sam said, poking Steve in the thigh with his foot. “Oh, no, don’t you open your mouth and try to explain your old-timey sensibilities, Mr Rogers. We got more important things to do.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and waggled them, and Bucky kicked him. “Where is your mind, Steve?”

“We got more important things to do like figuring out what to do with the five of us and where your man here fits into the base and if Darcy and the munchkin are coming back with us,” Sam finished.

“Oh,” Steve said. “Yeah. Darcy?”

“I’ve got some stuff of my own I need to work out, so it’d be useful to have you around.”

“Useful?” Sam asked, eyebrows raised.

“For Patrick,” Darcy said. “Another set of eyes.”

“You’d actually be useful at the base. I know Hill could use someone with diplomacy and tact right now, and that’s not any of us,” Steve offered. “Jane’s there now, working with Selvig; Thor brought her over, and he’s there when he’s on planet.”

Darcy nodded. “Are there other kids?”

“Some. The nearest town is trying to reconvene a school. The Barton’s still live off-base, and I know Laura’s been worried about you,” Steve paused. “Buck?”

Bucky looked down at his hand. “I don’t want another arm. I don’t wanna fight anymore, Steve.”

“Our hypothesis was right,” Darcy interjected.

Bucky jerked his head in a nod. “I can remember what happened before the war, and most of what happened in the war, but what the Soldier did is a shadow.” He stood up suddenly and turned to look out the window at the lake. “I don’t have a handle on who I am anymore.”

Steve exchanged a glance with Sam. “Well, we figured that might be the case. There’s people at the base who can help you if you want it: normal doctors and psychologists and Vision.”

“Vision?” Darcy asked.

Sam started to explain the fallout of Stark’s megalomaniac robot, and Steve watched Bucky at the window for a minute longer before getting up in search of his son. For now, everyone was safe. Everyone was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Wow. Done.
> 
> First, I would have never posted this if it wasn't for my best friend from high school who isn't even MCU fandom but still beta-read for me. Second, the idea came from a dream I had after reading one of [amusewithaview](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/pseuds/amusewithaview)'s soulmate shorts, so I guess I should thank her.
> 
> Third, holy cow, you guys. I had no idea anyone would ever like this, let alone comment chapter after chapter or leave kudos or bookmark or subscribe, and for someone who is very hesitant about posting any sort of writing and who has low self-esteem, the reaction has been amazing. If I could bake you all cookies, I would. You're amazing. I don't think I'd have ever had the gumption to post each chapter if it wasn't for all the comments. To know people were thinking about my story and had their own ideas and thoughts - there is literally nothing better.
> 
> I have a ton of shit worked out for all of the characters - both before and after - so if you have questions or prompts, feel free to hit me up on [the Tumblr](http://timetravelingvampire.tumblr.com/). I'm super-spoiler phobic (haven't even seen any of the trailers), so anon is off until after I see Civil War Thursday night. Anything I add on Tumblr will also be added on here under a new fic, so subscribe to the series if you want.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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